The Barbie Diaries (2006) - Almost So Bad it's Good, But So Far Off the Mark.

When my friend suggested this movie, I initially thought to put it on my list of "I'll get to it eventually" movies, the movies I don't feel much priority in finding, watching or reviewing. However, on account that this movie was A). Made for TV (Full honesty, I actually thought it was initially made to be Direct-to-Video, but after some research that does not appear to be the case) and B). According to my friend, absolute garbage, I kept it on my immediate backlog. The Barbie Diaries seemed like it would be one of those "So bad it's entertaining" movies, so, despite it being a Barbie movie, I had to have a look. Hard to believe but I am actually quite familiar with the Barbie brand, I remember playing a Demo for Barbie Explorer on the PlayStation, and I swear at least a quarter of all toy commercials I saw as a kid were for a girls toy. I am also acutely aware of the many, many movies in the Barbie franchise, but have yet to see any of them. No I am not going to marathon them. I've thought about a Dragon Ball Z movie marathon but that would take way too long and would probably get way to repetitive after a while. Anyway, my friend said this movie was really bad... were they right?

So, what is the plot of this movie? No, seriously what is the plot? Barbie and her friends are sophomores in high school now and try to achieve that dream of every character in a girls movie ever, being popular. What is the way they do it this time? School news? Befriending the popular guy? Becoming class president? Band gig? How about all of them? On top of that there are many little subplots, like one of Barbie's friends trying to admit his feelings towards her, and Raquel being really catty towards Barbie. This is like a combination of everything I hate in a plot, vain airheaded-ness, a dozen things going on at once, predictability, nothing of any real substance happening, and of course, High School culture. I guess American high school during the 2000s was different than Canadian high school during the 2010s. I talked about this in my First Impressions of the 2021 Diary of a Wimpy Kid movie, where I am just so done with the middle/high school depictions in media. It's really the same here.

Also, for whatever reason I just could not suspend my disbelief to the point where I could feasibly believe that Barbie, pop-culture icon, was the unpopular girl in school. It would be like trying to have Scrooge McDuck play in Bob Cratchit in A Christmas Carol. Granted I couldn't really see her as the catty queen bee that nobody actually likes, but like, not the unpopular kid. If Barbie qualifies as an unpopular girl, than this school would collapse if Daria walked in.

Let's get the immediate issue out of the way, the animation is awful, all caps, AWFUL! Close-ups make the characters look absolutely dead eyed, movement is stilted and stiff, lip-syncing is all off, and the models are those early 2000s CG that was out of date and aged by 2004. It looks like a cheap shovel ware PlayStation 2 or Wii game, which is actually hilarious when you consider that the actual Barbie games for the PlayStation2 and Nintendo Wii look way better than this movie. Heck, Barbie Explorer on PlayStation 1 looks better than this movie. At least the visuals here are bright and colourful, but I'd say they were too bright and colourful. It looked like someone turned up the contrast to the first season of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic at times. The animation was actually agonizing to watch

I know I have talked about animation being more than a visual medium and I have handwaved aside other visually unappealing movies like Cats, but there is something I want to talk about. Not only do previous Barbie movies look better, but TV CGI has looked way better too. ReBoot looks outdated today, but it still looks better than this. VeggieTales, Jimmy Neutron, heck even if we want to bring in little kids shows, Rolie Polie Olie. All of those shows predate this movie, so this can't just be handwaved aside as "Standards of the time", this movie was made in the early 2000s, and we've been working with computer animation since the late 50s! What we might consider as "Modern" Computer Animation dates back to the 80s, so there really is no excuse for this movie looking and moving worse than the Money for Nothing music video. One should not judge an animated movie by how it looks, but there is a point where it just becomes difficult to watch.

To be fair, the music wasn't terrible, it was very 2000s, akin to Avril Lavigne or Kelly Clarkson, not music I normally listen to, I'm very much a 90s Alt Rock person, but I do have a varied taste in music and I am somewhat nostalgic for the 2000s. That being said, I wouldn't say the music in the movie was good, especially not the background music that felt very generic and uninspired. I dunno, if Sk8er Boi is one of your absolute jams, the songs in this movie might not be that bad for you, but if you're just a bit nostalgic for the 2000s days, I think you'll just grudgingly accept it like I did. Hey, Avril Lavigne is not the worst musician of the 2000s you could emulate, that was also the decade of Hinder and Puddle of Mudd. 

I mean, do I even need to say more? Characters? What character, most of them are just your basic stereotype. We don't even get much variety in there. I mean, where are the other stereotypes that we absolutely hate? The nerd, the goth, the weirdo, the artist, the kinds of characters we see in all of these school stories. I mean it wouldn't help matters, but at the same time it would at least offer some variety so that we're not watching the same two characters with minor personality differences. This movie is an absolute mess, and it almost qualifies as so bad it's good. If I were to rank all the bad movies, I'd put this one lower than that Hercules and Xena movie I reviewed back in... wow 2019... time flies. Unfortunately, this movie is not good on an entertainment level, once the initial novelty of the animation and 2000s aesthetic wear off, it just exposes the flaws of the writing more and more. Honestly, I guarantee that there are way better Barbie movies than this, ones that feel less brain rotting and have more substance to them. If Barbie movies are candy, than this movie is one of those Popeye Sugar Sticks that we all pretended were cigarettes as kids, absolutely disgusting.

Monster High: 13 Wishes (2013) - Nothing special, but harmless

Well, it's the October month, and that means spooky scary fun and also spooky silly fun. Last year I didn't end up reviewing any kind of spooky movie, I got a copy of The Thief and the Cobbler earlier and I really wanted to talk about it, and I also looked at the Recobbled Cut that same month. So, this year I thought I'd make up for the lack of a spooky review by taking a look at a Monster High movie... Goodie. Well, hey I enjoyed My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, I have a soft spot for Jem and the Holograms, and I've watched Ruby Gloom growing up, so maybe this won't be so bad. Also, if you're wondering, I chose 13 Wishes because it is the one I am the most familiar with, in the sense that it was the only one I knew existed and vaguely what it was about. Thanks online internet video game reviewers!

Plotwise it is about the younger sister of Clawdeen Wolf, Howleen (As an aside, I hate these names) finding a magic lantern and summoning a Genie, who gives her thirteen wishes. You can  probably tell where this goes, but to the movie's credit, they do twist your expectations a little bit. First off, this genie has an evil shadow doppelgänger, which is not a part of genies that I have seen before, but also is that while Howleen does begin to make selfish wishes, she actually does start by trying to make others happy. It isn't until she gets bullied by others that the shadow genie begins to manipulate her into using the wishes selfishly. It's actually kind of clever, or it would be if the bullying was more than two sentences. Otherwise, you know what you're going to get with this plot, character gets ultimate power, uses it unwisely and almost puts a great evil in power. The plot is nothing that special.

I think that is my biggest problem with the movie, or should I say, special. Yeah, this would be another "Technically" review, but the movie is over an hour long. Despite that, it really is not written or edited like a movie. Most movies would hold on shots or let scenes linger to really let the weight of the scene take hold, they can do this because they have a rather lengthy time limit to really experiment with. A television show does not have this time to play around with, so emotional scenes have to be done differently. The ending conversation between Pearl and Amethyst in the Steven Universe episode "On The Run" would probably have been written differently if it was for a movie. This movie is not really written or edited like a movie and more like an extended television episode, which I'll be honest, is only a problem if that is not what you're expecting. I hear people complain that some movies based on shows are "Just an extended episode" and I usually never see that, well, now I think I know why, those movies are still written and edited like movies.

Character wise, well... I mean they aren't bad. The main cast are friendly and want to help people, which is nice, Clawdeen is very much the "Big sister", but she doesn't really remind me of my brother like the sister in "Whisper of the Heart" did, in that she doesn't come off like she's trying to be a controlling figure in her younger sibling's life. Gigi the genie is kind of bland, honestly so is the villain Whisp, she's just kind of your basic villain. Howleen is a high school girl, probably freshman, maybe sophomore, I'm sure some Monster High fan is gonna correct me on that one. I dunno, the characters to me never seem to go beyond the basic characteristics that we expect of characters like these. I will say, I do like one of the background characters, just a dude with an eyeball as his head, it's like if someone from The Residents was a cartoon character, and I adore it.

I also have a few criticisms with the voices. For the most part the actors do fine, I never heard a flat read or a bad take in there, but a few of them out on rather generic accents, and Draculaura's voice is clearly pitched up a little, like other people noticed that right? I just found it really distracting. Otherwise, again the voice acting was fine. That is also my opinion of the animation, it isn't bad, it's smooth and has some appeal to it, but television quality 3D animation is never going to look as good as it could.

Really that is the best thing to take away from this review, this is a television movie, and it feels like it. On some level I do have to admire the fact that they didn't try to emulate a theatrical experience. I think if you go into this movie knowing what you're gonna get, you might have a good time. Nothing about this movie is that special, but it isn't terrible, as a whole I can recommend this is a certain type of audience. Hey, there is nothing wrong with a movie that is made for specific audiences. If you want a silly spooky something to put on this Halloween, well I'd recommend other things first, but if you want to try something new, I don't see the harm in this one. I may only slightly recommend it, but it's still a recommendation.