Movie Thoughts: Barbie as Rapunzel (2002)

• Released: October 1 2002
• Directed by: Owen Hurley
• Running time: 1 h 24 min
• Rating 4/5

Synopsis

The story of Rapunzel retold through a creative lens, which happens to involve Barbie.

My Thoughts

Despite my distaste for most traditionally feminine things in particular, I always loved the early 2000′s fantasy Barbie movies growing up. I didn’t even see that many of them, but the ones I did see, I saw countless times. My favorite of which back when happened to be Barbie as Rapunzel.

Why? Well, it pretty much had everything I loved back then: a cool villain, magic, non-villainous dragons, a medieval fantasy setting, being an artist, etc.

So, does it hold up after all these years? Eh, yes and no. Okay, first of all: the visuals genuinely are not that good. It’s not that the character models in and of themselves are hard to look at, but it’s just that you can clearly see that this was an early 2000′s CGI movie that didn’t have a huge budget. Obviously things will age a bit as time goes on, but even comparing it to other movies at the time this one looks pretty cheap. The textures and backgrounds just don’t work that well (anymore) and it does at times really look more like cutscenes of an older game than an actual movie.

But, you know what they say, a good story can save bad visuals. Coincidentally, this story has some (not a lot, though) similarities to Disney’s Tangled that would come out years later. Not just because of the source fairy tale it’s based on, but also the whole painting aspect of it for example. I also like how, despite this being an early 2000′s princess movie, it actually has the titular character being pro-active and saving her prince rather than vice versa.

The characters are pretty great, too. Sure, Gothel is a pretty basic villain, but I really enjoyed Rapunzel’s tremendous courage and willpower. Hobie was a comic relief side character I surprisingly didn’t dislike, and Penelope is just adorable. Hugo, her father, is an interesting character, too! I guess only the prince is pretty bland.

The animation is pretty good, though sometimes a bit awkward. I also noticed that the characters don’t actually have tongues, which isn’t a problem on the humans as they don’t open their mouths this far, but it’s definitely noticeable on Penelope for example. It’s not a huge issue, but it’s definitely pretty prominent on the dragon characters.

Rapunzel and the prince also don’t really have much chemistry. They meet once, then meet again, and then Rapunzel sets out to save him and they get married soon after, though the exact time between their third meeting and their marriage is left ambiguous. It’s not a huge issue to me personally, though.

So, yeah, while visually definitely cheap and dated, I’d say the characters and story make up for it. Childhood favorite I still hold dear.