Barbie of Swan Lake
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Movie Reviews of Barbie of Swan Lake
Movie Review: Barbie of Swan Lake rocks! Totally rocks!!!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
I Love barbie of swan lake. If you LOVE unicorns,fairys,magic,sparkles, etc. then this is the movie for you! SPOILER!!! First off: Barbie\Odette is a girl that works in her papa's bakery.Also,there is Odette's sister that rides a horse,she only appears a few times in the movie. Odette follows a unicorn,Lila,into the Enchanted Forest. She pulls out the magic crystal from a tree. Then the Fairy queen appears and tells Odette she can save the forest. Odette thinks she is not the right person.But then Rothbart turn Odette into a swan.The fairy queen change the spell and odette is a swan by day/girl at night.She needs to find the book of forest lore,and goes to Erasmus's prince daniel is about to kill Odette :0 but ends up fasinated by her beautiful-ness....fall in love.....etc,etc,etc.....GET THE MOVIE TO FIND OUT! THE ''scary''music actually fits in with the movie. my favorite part of this movie is where the fairy queen tells Odette about how rothbart took over the forest. And then Rothbart has freaky red eyes! SERIOUSLY. RED EYES!!!!! AAACCCKKK. WHY did Mattel PUT IN RED EYES?!?!?! those red eyes are so Then again,I felt I could sit through it. RED EYES only appear 2 times in this movie.... I mean if I were you I would,on the first time the red eyes come,please turn the volume down,and fast foward or go to ''My favorite scenes'' and choose a different scence.First time I saw it (the whole thing)I COULD NOT BELIVE IT!!!!!!! Then I came to the second red eyes thing,when Rothbart was an eagle....I sat through it and it wasn't to bad. that is what I would do. anyway,I think Odile(Rothbart's daughter)'s laugh isn't that annoying I think some of her lines are funny (''Oh, you are all roadkill!'') This movie is...it ROCKS.THIS MOVIE ROCKS EVEN THOUGH IT HAS A RED EYES AND A EVIL ROTHBART. BARBIE LOVERMovie Review: Lovely music, lovely dancing, and an approachable classic for girls
Summary: 5 Stars
Next to the Princess and the Pauper this is the favourite movie in our house for my under 5 yr old girls. It is beautifully animated, generally quite gentle and pastle in colours (so different from Fairytopia and even RApunzel), it has lovely clear messages and great music.
This is the story of Swan Lake retold for Barbie. Here she plays the role of Odette who is the daughter of a baker in a small town. Her sister is a tom-boy who loves riding horses - this sister seems quite superflouous to the story, I have never figured out why she was put in here at all.
Anyway, Odette follows a Unicorn back through a secret entrance to a magic forest. There she saves her but cutting a rope with a jewel which she has found. This turns out to be a magic jewel which only a special chosen one can pick up. It seems it is Odette who is chosen, but before she can do anything she is turned into a Swan by Rothgar who has been terrorising the forest. The Fairy Queen makes a crown out of the jewel to protect her - and changes the spell as best she can so Odette is a swan during the day and girl by night.
Odette is saved by love when a Prince, drawn into the forest by Rothgar to kill the swan, falls in love with her beauty - first as a bird, and then as a girl.
The film departs from the standard Swan lake at this point - there are lots of animals enchanted by Rothgar - but in the end it is love, and friendship which overcome all. A really nice message.
The dance scene where Rothgar puts an enchantment over his daughter Odile so that everyone thinks she is Odette is quite confusing for my littlies but does not distract from their enjoyment. The dancing is very beautifully done, lovely animation here.
I also loved the colours in this, they tended towards rich pastels rather than the glaring brightness of Rapunzel and Fairytopia
Finally, the music. I loved it - it is of course from the Ballet itself, and it is lovely. I think this is such a nice way for children to be introduced to ballet and to classical music.
A great movie, good messages and fun to watch as a family.
Movie Review: From a Barbie skeptic...
Summary: 5 Stars
Barbie. I tried to keep her away from my rough and tumble twin girls as long as possible. I relented two months ago, for their fourth birthday. I just couldn't squelch their girly-girlishness any longer. First came the dolls, then the outfits, and now the accessories. Great-Grandma bought them this dvd, Swan Lake, while we visited for Thanksgiving. The whole family is pleasantly surprised at how entertaining it is! It successfully kept the two older brothers and daddy out of the kitchen for a good part of the afternoon!If you are not freaked out by fantasy, crystals, unicorns, and magic, than I assure you, your little girl will enjoy this dvd. I think what I really enjoyed about it is that it uses the classical Swan Lake music, rather than Disney-esque songs. So if I have to listen to it in the background every day for the next week or two (as children are wont to do with a new dvd), it is much more pleasant than listening to inanimate objects singing mind-numbing verse.
The animation is very realistic, especially the dance sequences. The story is about good vs evil, and courage. There is humor, beauty, some scariness, and of course, true love.
The additional featurette about girls and music was very interesting. It features five teenage girls and how music is such a strong part of their lives (two violins, one cello, one harp, and one trumpet). My girls have now taken to "performing" music for us, using a little electronic keyboard and a guitar, which they prop between their legs like a cello. They even "rehearse" prior to performing. I think a love of music is vitally important in creating a well-rounded soul, and I am thrilled that this Barbie featurette gave them an impetus to actively participate in music-making, rather than just listening.
Again, it was much better than we expected. I'm beginning to think this Barbie-thing could be a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to expanding my Barbie horizon.
Movie Review: Lovely adaptation of the Tchaikovsky classic ballet...
Summary: 5 Stars
This film is not just for young Barbie fans. It is also for their moms - particularly moms like me who grew up admiring Tchaikovsky's beautiful "Swan Lake" ballet. I saw it performed by the Royal Ballet in London as a teenager and have been enraptured with the story eversince. I purchased this DVD for my 3 year old daughter for us to watch and enjoy together. My daughter loves it because of the sweet story, playful characters, the dances and, of course, for Barbie! What I enjoyed about this movie is how it captures the spirit of the ballet. Any decent adaptation of "Swan Lake" needs to incorporate Tchaikovsky's music into the story and this movie does just that. Add to this the lovely ballet that the characters perform and a plot that stays fairly true to the original (albeit minor changes to make it more G or PG-ish). In this case, Odette becomes lost in the Enchanted Forest and is captured and transformed into a swan by the evil Rothbart. The fairy queen helps her by changing the spell so that she becomes a swan by day but transforms back to her old self at night. While wandering the forest the Prince Daniel meets and falls in love with Odette but only through courage and strength can Odette find a way to defeat Rothbart and break the spell.
This is a lovely story that any young girl (and her mother) would enjoy. The CGI is splendid and the movie is filled with beautiful scenes and landscapes. The dance sequences are lovely and are lifted almost directly from Tchaikovsky's ballet and the music, of course, is wonderfully incorporated into the film. Highly recommended for Barbie, Swan Lake or young ballet fans, their sisters and their moms!
Movie Review: Great for animation lovers, too...
Summary: 5 Stars
Yes, I will admit, despite being in my 20s, I still enjoy and collect animation. I have for years, and Barbie is a fairly recent discovery for me (beyond her cameos in Toy Story). While at first I was reluctant to give any of the Barbie movies a chance, a friend of mine watched Rapunzel with her niece and insisted they were pretty good. So, renting the first two movies with a few other friends including her, we prepared ourselves for an evening of amusement. Yes, we found some things funny and still carry inside jokes based on the movies even many months after, however overall I liked them.
And Swan Lake is certainly no exception. In fact, I loved this one. The animation is very well done, and the music is just enchanting. It gave me a warm and fuzzy feeling all over. It was like I was a kid again, watching my favorite film and going back to relive the feelings years later. It even made me regret I didn't stick to those ballet lessons my mother sent me to years ago, as the dance scenes were adorable and magical. Barbie was in my life once again, only this time, I wasn't playing with dolls.
The only thing that really, truly bothered me about Swan Lake was that of Rothbart's daughter. Her laughter was incredibly irritating and distracted me from any scene in which she chose to do so. Thankfully Ivan and the other enchanted forest dwellers are a delight and make up for it.
In closing, I highly recommend this to any parent, aunt, uncle, grandparent, or whoever looking for a great gift (holiday or otherwise) for a child. And perhaps even for an animation fan such as myself, if you aren't too afraid.