Barbie: The Princess and the Popstar (2012)
On November 1, 2023 by CrescentBarbie: The Princess and the Popstar decided to return to the roots of the Barbie franchise with a callback to an older film. This movie was made with the intention of going back to that old nostalgia… But all it really does is sour the memory of an actual good movie.
Story
Princess and the Popstar revolves around two girls: Tori, a princess, and Keira, a popstar. They envy each other’s lives, and after meeting, the decide to switch lives for a day. They are forced to see things through a different perspective following the switch, and they learn that they should value their own lives even if they yearn for something new.
At least… I think that’s what happens? This story isn’t good. At all. The characters are very selfish, and the choices they make feel even worse. There’s a plot of Keira’s manager trying to steal a royal diamond plant from the castle, but it doesn’t feel like it does anything interesting. If anything, it’s forced in a movie that’s already forced in so many other ways. The characters don’t even learn anything at the end of it all. So what was the point of all this in the first place?
The pacing of this movie is absolutely miserable too. It’s very lopsided, and everything feels so much slower than it needs to be. I found myself checking how much time was left in the movie more here than ever before. It’s not a particularly long movie, but it feels long with how little happens in all this time. It feels like there’s nothing of value here.
The story of Princess and the Popstar is slow, boring, and the plot goes nowhere… But the characters make it worse.
Story: 1/10
Characters
The characters of Princess and the Popstar take this already mediocre plot and make it so much worse. Tori is repeatedly rude to her aunt, and she doesn’t even know poverty exists until the movie happens. You know, when she’s seventeen. She has anything and everything she could ever ask for, but she’s still not happy with it. This yearning isn’t framed in a relatable way either. It just feels entitled.
Keira is a little bit better, but not by much. She has all the money and fame she could ever ask for, but she can’t commit to doing the work required of her position. She would rather just run away and leave it all behind for a life she thinks is easier. These two girls could do anything they wanted, but instead, they just want to get away from their incredibly privileged and good lives. It’s exhausting to watch.
The other characters in the movie are all widely annoying too. Crider is a grating villain, and while I found myself rooting for him to succeed, it was more out of a desire to screw over the protagonists rather than actually liking him. Prince Liam does nothing of value and appears for the finale without any previous development. The dogs feel unnecessary and grating, especially Riff. Amelia is right about Tori needing to be serious, and the people pressuring Keira to do her job are much more relatable than any named character.
There are no characters to latch onto in this movie, and everyone is beyond obnoxious and frustrating to have to watch. I don’t like any of them, and it’s fully justified.
Characters: 0/10
World Building
The world building of this movie is… Confusing. Meribella is a bizarre setting, and its attempt at social commentary through the introduction of social classes doesn’t feel like it works. The characters can’t be that clueless. I appreciate the attempt, but I can’t really give it much more than that. The setting has no history either, just that it has existed for 500 years. There’s nothing to go off here.
But the magic system is somehow even worse. Tori and Keira just somehow have magical items. This is never explained, and magic is never brought up outside of here or the plot plant. The diamond bush doesn’t make much sense either, and boiling an economy down to what is essentially a money tree is very lazy. It really goes back to bite at the previous world building when it was already bad enough. The presence of magic here makes the world worse. Sure, it’s accurate to real life in the form of the class divide that never gets fixed, but that’s not what they were going for here. I know for a fact it wasn’t.
The world feels muddled with a magic system that makes no sense that enables the ignorance of the leading characters.
World Building: 1/10
Themes
Princess and the Popstar doesn’t really have a theme. It just kind of uses lyrics from its central song, “Here I Am,” and calls it good. The designated theme doesn’t really do much, and it doesn’t mean much either. The characters sure are here… And they’re insufferable. If you want to go in a different direction, you can say the theme is to be grateful for what you have… But the characters don’t do that. Honestly, the characters are so miserable and awful that you can’t learn anything good from them. I don’t think they themselves learn anything by the end of the story. No theme would work here. The movie just doesn’t teach a lesson.
Theme: 1/10
Production
Princess and the Popstar has decent enough animation, but it feels like a bit of a step down from the last few movies. This largely comes from the dancing animations. In the past, all Barbie movies that contained dancing used motion capture to get it right. This movie does not though, and its dancing looks very clunky as a result. It can be distracting at times, and that’s the last thing you want your animation to be. The lip syncing with the music is a bit off-putting too. Most of the time, the animation looks fine, but its flaws are very glaring.
Normally, a Barbie movie having vocal tracks is a point in its favor. That’s not the case here. The music in Princess and the Popstar is very generic, either repeating the same two original songs or resorting to parodies and covers of existing songs. I find this rendition of “To Be a Princess” to be the most insulting. The song had a purpose and narrative weight in Princess and the Pauper, but here, it feels worthless. The music doesn’t do anything for this movie, and while it’s technically fine, it just feels like a way to make the movie longer with how the songs slow down the pacing. This movie can’t be considered a musical since the songs don’t move the story forward, so the music usually just slows it down instead.
The voice acting in this movie is fine enough, but there are a few voices that just don’t feel fitting. Amelia and Crider are the biggest culprits here. Their voices just feel… Off somehow. Crider’s voice is very annoying too, and it only makes him more frustrating to watch. The singing voice for Tori also doesn’t match her speaking voice very well, only adding to the distraction of the lip syncing.
The animation and voice acting are fine, but it’s a marked step down from previous movies, and the songs aren’t winning any awards.
Production: 3/10
Overall
Barbie: Princess and the Popstar isn’t a good movie in the slightest. Its story is obnoxious and only worsens the already unsympathetic cast. The production is the only part of the movie that’s decent, and even so, it’s not great. There’s nothing of value here, and I can’t recommend this in the slightest. It’s bad. It’s just bad.
Overall: 1.2/10
Silly Superlative: Barbie movie with the clunkiest dancing animations
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