Barbie und die geheime Tür

To begin, I am a Barbie lover, I collect barbies, I have all the movies and am just a huge fan. However, since Barbie in Thumbelina, the films have lacked their original element of magic. The characters are no longer dynamic, and every film with the exception of the Three Muskateers has been set in the present with no real magical otherworldly elements except for going under the sea for tacky underwater cities or into fairy lands that lack any kind of creativity in landscape and visual design. The exceptions since Thumbelina have been Muskateers, Princess Charm School and a Fashion Fairytale.

There have been seven movies since Charm School, and they have finally made another decent one. It still doesn't come close to Swan Lake/Rapunzel/Fairytopia/Pegasus etc, but it is on an equal level with Charm School. The colours are bright and the land beyond the door has more detail than the ones in Fairy Secret, which I really appreciate, because whoever designed the fairy world in that was absolutely useless.

The first two songs sung by Barbie 'Alexa' (I swear they're running out of names, haven't they used Alexa before?) are very catchy, despite they lyrics being lazy. However, the songs sung by her mermaid and fairy friends are really boring and the dancing is so awkward you want to block your eyes.

The villain is awesome though! I found her really funny, she's a little brat who is totally spoilt and her song gives us a good look at her character and develops our love/hate relationship with her. I was really happy with her, considering the last few villains which have been really boring and haven't had any musical numbers in a while.

Another plus is that Barbie doesn't look like such an alien in this one! I remember seeing her in 'A Mermaid Tale' and almost died from how giant her eyes were and how rounded and large her head was. Well it's still huge and her eyes are still giant, but she looks less crazy. She's definitely a bit more human looking than she was. Hopefully returning to her original movie looks.

My niece who is 9 really loved this film and she agrees with me about the last few being disappointments. She found this one really entertaining and funny, and loved the colours in the film! I personally felt the extreme lolly colouring to be a bit much, and almost got a headache from the overkill, but she loved it so I guess that's something the kids must like.

It has good messages in it as well, about being who you are and learning that you can shine even if you are shy and that you can do anything if you put your mind to it. It has all the typical barbie movie motivational messages in it, so that's always good.

Definitely worth watching, it gives hope that Barbie movies might be getting better again.

I personally love Barbie movies; I grew up with them and still like to watch my favorites today as well as see the newer ones. So many modern Barbie movies have been so disappointing, but the concept of this movie seemed really interesting. Within the first 3 minutes (at the start of the first song) I knew it would be off-putting. The concept and idea was there, the characters were good and I loved the twist with the villain being a spoiled little girl. What truly destroyed it though was the modernization. Maybe it's just because I'm used to the older movies having song lyrics containing "LOL," but if they could have stuck to the original style of Barbie fantasy movies, it could have been great! The songs were too "pop-y" which completely distracted from the fantasy atmosphere. I adore the concept, the characters are good, and the animation looks beautiful... but as they tried to cater too much to the typical modern stereotype, they took away from the overall enjoyment of the movie.

I wanted to see one of the new barbie movies because I grew up watching the old ones, and I loved them. Barbie and the secret door was terrible. Extremely formulaic and annoying. The music was horrible, less than 20 minutes into the film there were already 3 songs, and all are very bad pop songs, the classical music they used in the old ones fits a lot better for this. The story telling was super lazy. They don't try even in the slightest to explain anything. The secret door magically appears, it doesn't have a spell or something that makes it appear. She is just carrying a fairytale book and that somehow makes the door appear. Then, as she enters the magical land her dress changes and she magically has a tiara and a magic wand on her head... ok. The villain was pathetic, Barbie villains don't tend to be very bad or anything, but they always look a bit menacing at least. This is just an annoying brat. The plot overall is just lazy, we've seen it thousands of times before.

The colors were also extremely overwhelming, and it looked like it was a rip off version of a Dr. Seuss Land. I was very dissapointed with this movie, as the old ones were actually quite good and could be compared to a dreamworks production or something. This is at the same level of films like Pinocchio 3000.

A good movie. I purchased this from Amazon.com and was first in the e-queue but also was a little puzzled, as when I showed the movie off most people had already seen it. Apparently there are a whole load of websites where you can watch this movie for free on-line.

However the kids really did enjoy it and as soon as the movie finished they pressed play and watched it again, which they have not done since Tinkerbell a good sign of money well spent. The scenes were bright and colourful, the story engaging, a little more thrills and fun. The dopey mermaid was funny and the grandmother was kinda cool as well.

For a movie advertised as a musical, regretfully, the songs were weak. The kids hummed away on the old Barbie tunes, but not so here.

Although she does play the part of the reluctant hero, which is good, no explanation is given why she is so reluctant. What happened to the brave and inspiring Barbie of old who fought against all kinds of monsters, wizards, witches etc. "Fighting an evil princess, I don't think I can do that." She plays a cowardly role and wanders around far too much. Barbie was uninspiring.

There was such little characterisation built up, the entire cast seemed one dimensional and we could not make ourselves care about any of them. No matter how much trouble they got into we were so distant from the movie we could not have cared less. This was the movies biggest flaw zero empathy.

When the characters had their magic drained they should have fallen deathly ill, grey skin, feverish, then there could have been a sense of urgency to the plot, that these friends had to push their fears aside, band together and rescue their fellows, quickly, but there was no clock ticking away in the background to add anything so was the usual slow paced offering.

We watched Malucia steal powers, attack people, and we were all very disappointed when she was given such a trivial punishment at the end, there was a real sense of injustice.

Would be keen to see a love story next, something like beauty and the beast(-ish) maybe.

All in all a good movie, well worth a watch or rent.

I have watched all the Barbie movies with my girls, and i love how un-Disney they all are! No Prince to save the day, just Barbie! (though they do have great humour, one liners and music!)

Unfortunately, not so in this film. The main character is weak and quite pathetic. The secondary characters are very one dimensional, her friends and family (except for her grandmother), don't seem to know, or understand her very well... The antagonist is extremely irritating! The colour was just too much, i found myself longing for something white! Waiting for a bit of tension or for one of the characters to do something clever. The plot so thin, i wouldn't walk on it if it were ice. The music was terrible, and the CG seems to have taken a step back... Checking the credits, i notice the main writer is someone who usually writes for Winnie the Pooh, and has never done a Barbie movie before... and i do hope he doesn't do one again. Because if this is the new direction they are going, i wont be introducing my girls to any more Barbie films.

Unlike some, i love the newer Barbie Films, Charm school, Princess andthe Pop star, Pony tale, fabulous! This one... not so much, most definitely the worst Barbie film ever made...