Glitter pink money background12/2/2023 While it’s fun to see their personalities clash, there’s too much going on, as they each get A Big Christmas Arc to fulfill. The four Roberts girls get stranded in a small town on the way to New York City for Christmas. (That slowly evolves, until Barbie transforms back to a regular girl in the newest movies.) There are a few references to Barbie’s previous adventures and in-universe movie roles in this one, which is less about Barbie as a glamorous fashionista and more about her role as a big sister. This is the first of those “Barbie and her sisters” movies - Barbie’s sisters (and their full names) had long been a part of the doll canon, but this one officially introduces all the Roberts girls as part of the movie universe.Īt this point, though, the movies are still kinda tied to the preexisting canon of Barbie as a movie star. This Barbie is an older sister who just wants her younger sisters to have the perfect Christmas! Image: Universal Pictures Home Entertainment So does the plot, where the girls get lost on an island and cannot seem to do anything right in terms of trying to find their way back to their hotel.īarbie & Her Sisters in a Puppy Chase is available for digital rental or purchase on Prime Video and Vudu. The puppies have an even more prominent role in this one, which drags it all the way down to this placement on the list. The puppies the sisters have here were introduced in 2015’s Great Puppy Adventure, and they are the most annoying part of that movie, since they spend most of their screen time talking to each other and making dumb observations and jokes. Also, Barbie has two more sisters: athletic Stacy and tech-savvy Skipper. But Kelly was rebranded as “Chelsea” in 2011. Previous movies sometimes had a framing device where Barbie told a story to Kelly, her youngest sister. The 2010s kicked off a new wave of Barbie movies that also focused on Barbie and her little sisters. This Barbie is an older sister who majorly messes up some vacation plans! Image: Mattel Creations, Rainmaker Entertainment/Universal Pictures Home Entertainment Compared to other Barbie movies, this one feels like it swung and missed what people actually love about the Barbie movies, which is seeing the fashion doll in a more story-driven context.īarbie: A Fashion Fairytale is available for digital rental or purchase on Prime Video and Vudu. The plot is contrived around the magic closet. But in this particular movie, you can really see how the magical item was specifically made with a toy in mind: It’s a magical closet that transforms clothes by completely covering them in glitter. There’s nothing inherently wrong with being fashion-forward this is Barbie, after all. Thus began the era where Barbie was a movie star (cool!) stumbling onto magical secrets (cool!), except unlike the previous movies where the magic varied, the magic in this era is, like, exclusively about fashion. This Barbie is a movie star taking a break from the spotlight and helping save her aunt’s fashion house from ruin!Īfter a bunch of fairy-tale retellings, Mattel Entertainment apparently decided Barbie needed to be a regular girl - but still with some magic. Image: Barbie Entertainment, Rainmaker Entertainment/Universal Pictures Home Entertainment I also eliminated Barbie: Epic Road Trip, a Netflix interactive, since it’s more of a game than a movie. It just doesn’t seem fair to compare a bunch of direct-to-VHS kids’ movies to a big four-quadrant blockbuster. It was made with a different audience in mind than any of the films below, and more importantly, it had a much bigger budget. Quick note: I made the executive choice not to include Gerwig’s movie in the ranking. So which movies hold up? Which ones truly embody the Barbie energy that has been in the zeitgeist over the past few months? Which are worthy of checking out when you exit the theater in a post- Barbie high?Īs is my nature and my calling, I sat down and watched every single Barbie movie, from Barbie in the Nutcracker to 2023’s Barbie: Skipper and the Big Babysitting Adventure, and ranked every single one of them. But one thing is constant across all Barbie movies: She’s the hero of her own story, saving the day (and often the world!) with her best friends, all while looking super cute. There have been a lot of Barbie mermaids. And also fantasy movies featuring mermaids. But there’s more to Movie Barbie than our specific childhood favorites - her film career has gone through many different phases, from straight-up fairy-tale adaptations to hard science fiction. People who grew up as Barbie fans after 2001 probably have their Barbie movie, the one they watched over and over again as kids and have practically memorized. Float into our DreamHouse: Barbie World is Polygon’s dive into everything Barbie, from her legacy as an iconic toy to her presence in games and movies.
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