Barbie and the Three Musketeers

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Product Reviews

(4 stars) - My daughter loves Barbie movies
This one is as good or better than the others. Great story line and my daughter can watch it over and over and she is almost 4 yrs. old.

(1 stars) - A Sad Downturn in the Quality of this Series
I have most of the other Barbie movies [just for my own guilty pleasure, no kids in my household anymore] and I have to say that this is the weakest of the lot.

The Prince is a sad excuse for a masculine protagonist and dragging Barbie so far out of any recognizable female role just destroys all believability in the movie. Have the writers run out of all credible female roles for Barbie to play that they must resort to having her do "crouching tiger, hidden tiger" type moves in mini-skirts in what is supposed to be pre-Revolutionary France?

Please, give us more on the order of the Twelve Dancing Princesses, Rapunzel, Swan Lake, or the Magic of Pegasus. Oh, and leave the cutesy modern lingo behind -- responding "sure" when the Prince asks Corinne to dance isn't hip, it's just stupid.

(5 stars) - She loved it!
This was purchased for my neice. My sister says she hasn't stopped watching it since she got it.

(5 stars) - A 6 year old favorite - Barbie as Karate Kid
This movie currently ranks #1 as my daughter's favorite Barbie movie, and it's one of her favorite movies overall. The storyline is cute and holds her attention, and the modern music (especially a remake of EMF's Unbelievable) has her dancing around the living room, much to my amusement. The parent in me likes that Barbie has friends with varied skin colors and talents (though of course one can criticize that they are all thin and beautiful), and the message that girls (or anyone, even the dreamer Prince) can do whatever they dream of doing is great. My daughter also noticed and commented that Barbie had a lot to learn from the older woman in the movie. I liked that Barbie recognizes the hypocrisy of the Prince in having his own dreams but denying the dreams of others, and in the end, Barbie is too busy foiling plots to kill the King to go off on a date:)

Extras: there are bloopers which send my daughter into the giggles, and the video of the kitty singing Unbelievable is one of her favorites.

Overall:
While the plot is crazy and unrealistic, the movie is entertaining to a kid and provides a storyline that is age appropriate. Yes, it's a bit saccharine, but that's perfect for the target audience, and it is amusing enough to me to make it tolerable (which is good since this movie is requested all the time).

(4 stars) - Preposterous, but my kids loved it

Mattel's latest gender-reversed classic in the "Barbie" animated series begins on a farm in Gascony where Corinne, daughter of the famous D'Artagnan, is practicing her swordfighting moves. (Her idea of swordfighting seems to owe more to the "Zorro" films than anything you would actually expect to find in 17th century France, but never mind.)

Corinne's life's ambition is to follow in her father's footsteps by becoming a royal musketeer. When she turns 17 she goes to Paris to enlist, carrying as D'Artagnan had before her, a letter of introduction to Monsieur de Treville, who is still Captain of the King's musketeers. (With the silver hair which is the only sign of age in this kind of film.)

Unfortunately for Corinne, the 17th century French authorities are not ready for the idea of a lady musketeer (probably this reluctance is the most plausible part of the film.) So instead she has to accept a job as a maid at the palace.

Just as D'Artagnan fell foul of "the three musketeers" on his first day in Paris and agreed to fight duels with each of them, Corinne has unfortunate meetings with three other girls while attempting to rescue her pet cat from an unpleasant dog belonging to the film's villain, and then finds that they are her new work colleagues.

Despite this unfortunate start, Corinne becomes friends with her new colleagues and it turns out that all four share an ambition to be royal musketeers. So they begin to train in secret.

Meanwhile the handsome Prince Louis, heir to the throne, is about to be crowned King on reaching his majority. His cousin Phillipe, who has been ruling France as Regent while Louis was a child, is less than happy at handing over power. Phillipe's nefarious plans are about to run into a most unexpected obstacle ...

From my adult perspective this was quite the most ridiculous of all the Barbie films - the fact that the music to the climax of the film was the song "unbelievable" seemed only too appropriate. But this isn't aimed at adults, it's aimed at little girls and I have to report that my eight year old daughter loved it, as did her twin brother. And in fact some of the jokes in the film are quite funny: they had my wife as well as our children laughing out loud and raised a few smiles even from me.

It has all the stock Barbie ingredients - a relentlessly positive heroine, a wicked villain, good and bad talking animals, etc. Like all the Barbie films "Barbie and The Three Musketeers" is also beautifully made, charming, and, if my daughter is anything to go by, can hold the attention of a little girl for hours.

Before we first rented any of the Barbie videos for my daughter, I was expecting them to be trite, over-commercialised, and over-sugary. In general, however, I have been pleasantly surprised.

Yes, they do have a lot of commercial spin-offs and a high saccharine count, but the quality of that film and the other Barbie videos we have subsequently bought or rented, was significantly higher than I had originally expected before I saw the first one. They have kept my children engrossed for hours - including my son as well as my daughter - and also introduced them to some beautiful stories. Several of them also introduced my children to some great musical classics: others, of which this is one, had instead enjoyable original or modern music. In all cases Mattel had hired first class international orchestras to provide the instrumental soundtrack.

On more than one occasion I have been listening to a CD of a classic such as Beethoven's pastoral symphony (Beethoven: Symphony No.6), or "The Queen of the Night's aria" from Mozart's opera "Mozart: The Magic Flute", and my daughter, who was then five years old, recognised and expressed appreciation of the music, and correctly remembered which Barbie film had used it. ("Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus" and "Barbie Fairytopia: Mermaidia" respectively.)

The music for "Barbie and the three musketeers" is easy on the ear, though this is not one of those Barbie films - there are some - which you would buy for the music.

For reference, the Barbie films with beautiful musical scores taken largely from the classics include

"Barbie of Swan Lake" (with music from the ballet of that name)
"Barbie in The Nutcracker" (ditto)
"Barbie and the Magic Of Pegasus" (Beethoven)
"Fairytopia II: Mermaidia" (Mozart)
"Barbie in the 12 dancing princesses dvd" (Mendelsohn)
"Barbie in a Christmas Carol" (various traditional carols)

The two best with music which is original rather than taken from the classics, are "Barbie as The Island Princess" and "Barbie As The Princess and the Pauper" the music for which I can particularly recommend.


In terms of production values, the DVD runs smoothly and is fairly easy to navigate around: it is as visually beautiful as any of the Barbie films to date, which is quite a high standard, and contains a few extras such as games.

Those people who enjoy criticising the way Mattel operate the Barbie franchise will not have much difficulty finding things in these films to sneer at. If you, or more importantly your kids, are allergic to an excess of twee sweetness, then these DVDs and the Barbie videos generally may not be for them.

One charge which is sometimes made against the Barbie films but which does not hold much water is the idea that they reinforce gender stereotypes, and that criticism does not appear at all applicable to this particular film. It's a gender reversed story, and the heroine and central character is far more interested in foiling plots against the King than in going on a date with him.

To summarise, these films are beautifully made, and will hold the attention of most small children for long enough for the typical exhausted parent to clear the mess they have made in several rooms of the house or collapse for an hour's rest after doing so. And there are enough more sophisticated jokes thrown in that you won't be completely bored to death if you decide to watch "Barbie and the Three Musketeers" with your offspring.

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