Barbie: Video Game Hero (2017)
On November 30, 2023 by CrescentBarbie: Video Game Hero treads new ground in regards to animation, subject matter, and storytelling… Unfortunately, it fails at every single one of these spectacularly. On top of that, it’s awful for anyone with photosensitivity. Lovely.
Story
In Video Game Hero, Barbie hits a snag while programming a video game. During her break to regather her thoughts, she is summoned into the world of the game. The tutorial guide tells Barbie that a virus is taking over and can only be defeated if she wins every level. Barbie agrees to help, embarking on a journey of teamwork and coding to win the day.
This movie is definitely stepping into new territory for Barbie, and it’s very condescending about it. Despite being a story about video games, Video Game Hero feels the need to explain itself at every turn. Nothing can be assumed or left up to the audience. It needs to be told instead of shown. The incorporation of coding feels like it’s talking down to the hypothetical young girl viewer. “See how cool this is?!” The audience can’t be trusted enough to understand things without being told what is going on, and it makes the dialogue unbearable.
And then there’s the product placement. This movie takes inspiration–or just outright uses–other video games for its story. Match three games are one thing, but the knockoff of Minecraft is another… And then the actual insertion of Just Dance? Really? That’s not a climax to a movie! That’s product placement! Everything is delivered in a way that feels like it’s trying to sell you something, and it only adds to the condescension. Nothing can rest here. You need to be told what to do, and it’s so ridiculously manipulative.
Video Game Hero tells everything and shows nothing, and its story talks down to the viewer at every turn.
Story: 0/10
Characters
Video Game Hero doesn’t really have distinctive characters. It feels like every character is an extension of every other. They have one-off character notes to make them feel different, but it never goes anywhere. Barbie is smart. Bella is competitive. Crystal is anxious. The ways in which the characters are written doesn’t help either. The story may be condescending as can be, but the characters are its vehicles, and they’re very frustrating because of it.
Cutie feels like the worst piece of this. The entire movie feels like it’s built in a way that appeals to young girls to get them interested in STEM fields, but Cutie is the worst of it. He’s a cloud meant to be cute, and his dialogue is delivered in rhymes meant to be charming… But it just isn’t cute or charming. He’s just annoying. The rest of the cast isn’t much better, but I found myself making the most jokes at his expense, so he bears mentioning here.
The characters of Video Game Hero don’t get to develop beyond spewing the pandering of the story, and they’re all incredibly annoying.
Characters: 0/10
World Building
The world building of Video Game Hero feels like it should be interesting. There are different gaming worlds, and we need to work through all of them in order to save the entire game. In theory, it sounds fun… But in practice, it’s just about product placement. It feels like everything is meant to appeal to some popular game or another. It’s built for iPad kids, and that’s not a compliment. Knockoff Minecraft is boring, and the other world building about characters’ programming is shallow.
But Just Dance is the worst of it. There’s a dance sequence in the climax of the movie as Barbie fights the virus for the last time… But it’s not really a fight, is it? Instead, it’s a dance battle to perhaps one of the most annoying songs in all of Barbie’s history. It has dogs yipping and is such obvious product placement that it makes me want to punch the screen. It’s so bad.
Not only is the world of Video Game Hero squandered potential, but it once again actively feels like an insult to the viewer.
World Building: 0/10
Themes
You’ll never guess it, but this movie once again gives us the generic “this is our story, what’s yours?” as a theme. It’s still bad. It’s still really bad. Even if you want to disregard that idea entirely for the sake of a new theme, the proposed theme would still stink. The theme would be something about learning to be flexible and working as a team, but it’s shared in such a condescending way that it’s barely something to believe in. This movie is looking down on the audience from beginning to end, and the viewer can’t even be trusted to figure out the lesson without being told.
Themes: 0/10
Production
Oh, I’ve been waiting to talk about this one. That’s not a good thing.
Video Game Hero is what one might call experimental in its animation. There are different art styles for every new gaming level the heroes visit. This on its own doesn’t sound too bad… But three settings in this movie are absolute nightmares for anyone with epilepsy or another type of photosensitivity. The skating scene in the beginning tries to emulate dropped frames with choppy animation, but it only gives you a migraine. I’ve always been sensitive to flashing lights in media, and this movie gave me a headache in the second scene that never went away. The second skating scene is just as bad, but this time, it adds blacklight to make it impossible to look at in a slightly different way. The traveling scenes in the glitch tunnel are the worst of it though. You don’t need the screen to flash! Please don’t make the screen flash!
I was watching this movie with a friend with someone who has photosensitivity problems, and she outright couldn’t watch half the movie because of the way it looks. My problems are less severe but still very present, and I could feel a migraine behind my eyes growing worse as the minutes passed by. The first time I watched this movie years ago, I got a headache in the second scene that never shook itself. I didn’t feel better until after a three hour nap. My reaction this time wasn’t that bad, but no movie should ever do something like that, especially without a warning. The Porygon episodes of Pokémon are banned for a good reason! Don’t put your viewers in danger with potentially seizure-inducing animation! I thought that was basic decency!
The rest of the animation is bad too. The Minecraft knockoff deserves to be mocked, and the dance sequence near the end is just as miserable. I hate the giant eye model they gave to video game Barbie. It looks horrible. I don’t think Barbie has ever looked worse, and after movies like Fairytopia and Barbie Diaries… That’s saying a lot. The animation is bad even when it’s not giving me an eye strain migraine.
The music and audio mixing are horrible here too. I can’t understand the lyrics of the songs above the loud instrumentals, and the dialogue is forced because of how bad the script is. No amount of regularly talented voice actors can work with a script this condescending and bad. I can barely keep track of what’s happening when the music is playing because of how loud it is, and the songs aren’t even good! What an absolute disaster.
Video Game Hero has a bad production under regular standards, but its outright dangerous animation makes me wish I could give it negative points here. It certainly deserves it.
Production: 0/10
Overall
Barbie: Video Game Hero is the worst movie in the entire Barbie cinematic universe. Not only is the movie condescending as can be, but it’s inaccessible and actively harmful to the audience. Don’t watch this movie under any circumstances, not even to make fun of it. If you have epilepsy or any other photosensitivity, steer especially clear. Be careful.
Overall: 0/10
Silly Superlative: Barbie movie with the most flashing lights
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