Utilising the same cast and major crew comes this third installment in the Barbie® menage, Swan Lake. Whilst not being true to the original ballet, it is, however, a more modern adaptation for the hip youth of today (well, hip girls anyway).

Barbie plays a camp counsellor trying to cheer up Shelley, her sometime little girl companion. She tells a story of a swan princess, Odette, and as she tells it, Shelley and Barbie become players in the story of the humble bakery assistant Odette. Following a strange unicorn into the forest one day, Odette gets lost and trying to help the unicorn, unwittingly fulfils a legend by grabbing a crystal and becomes The One. There’s an evil dude/bird called Rothbart (Kelsey Grammer in fine Sideshow Bob mode) who wants to control the forest (probably to log it or something equally evil) and he turns Odette into a swan. However, the Good Fairy Princess (sold separately) changes the spell so she is only a swan during the daytime.

Enter the Good Prince Daniel® who falls in love with Odette while they do some ballet around this big lake with swans in it. Odette then gets this big book that says how to beat Rothbart, but Rothbart steals it and so learns how to beat Odette and gain full control of the forest. So, at this big bash the prince’s mother throws, Rothbart puts a spell on his daughter so she looks like Odette and if the prince declares his love to her, the crystal will fail and Rothbart will win.

I won’t wreck the ending for you, but I will say this: I enjoyed this film a lot more than the previous Barbie® film I reviewed in Rapunzel. The animation, while not really any better, does contain more motion capture and has been used to bring the ballet to more life and does look alright. The film still looks like a video game gone horribly wrong, the characters are all overly caricaturised and the colours are still fierce, but storywise, I don’t think Tchaikovsky is rolling around too hard in his grave (even if there are trolls thrown in).

On that point, the adults watching (if any) will have fun finding the hidden references to bigger films like The Matrix, Lord of the Rings, Attack of the Clones and Harry Potter. Where these aren’t too blatant, they are at least a reminder that there are humans behind the scenes on this sort of sausage machine film.

Video-wise, the picture quality is fairly good, although a bit too crystal clear at times, allowing us to see the cracks in the rendering process. The colours are a bit garish occasionally, but in no way as bad as Rapunzel. Mattel®, being the parent producer behind the film, has slipped in a purple unicorn reminiscent of My Little Pony® and thankfully this character, while being the comedy sidekick, isn’t too over the top.

The lighting is an interesting choice in this as it isn’t the best and is always relatively the same from scene to scene. Flesh tones can merge heavily with darker shadows creating faces that are too quickly registered as dark and light without a great deal of transition between and I found this quite irritating. However, there are no film artefacts and aliasing is very rare which is to be expected with a fully computer rendered animation of this sort. The aspect ratio of 1.85:1 with 16:9 enhancement works okay for the piece and does help some of the larger, wider long scenery shots work better.

Musically, we are granted a huge Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack that is nice and clear without any distortion or background noise, which is a vast improvement on Rapunzel. Music has again been scored by Arnie Roth and has been based and arranged around Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. It sounds wonderful performed by the London Symphony Orchestra and adds a lot of value to the overall film quality. Lip synch is a little lazy in execution, but has undoubtedly been done to look ‘natural’, which is a bit of a misnomer in a video game looking cartoon. However, all is well spoken and easily registered.

Extras include quite a batch and far more than the last one, which is a bit of a pleasant surprise, particularly when the quality is as high as it is here. First up there is a featurette entitled The Music in You and runs for 25:26. This follows the fortunes of five actual students at the Juilliard School of Music and is delivered at 1.78:1 with 16:9 enhancement. What’s sweet is in the opening montage when kids are being asked who they like musically and one little girl says, ‘Bob Marley, The Rolling Stones and The Clash’ while another says, ‘I like Tupac’. I laughed, anyway.

Then comes The Ballet Dances of Swan Lake, a featurette with a chance to leap to any of four major pieces in the film and have Barbie® describe some history of that particular piece. Quite educational. Another educational tool comes next in the Explore the Stars game. This is basically an exploration of various constellations which thankfully aren’t all for the Northern Hemisphere. Finally, trailers for Barbie’s® two other films of The Nutcracker and Rapunzel. Each of these is practically voiceover and dialogue free with scenes from each at 1.85:1 with 16:9.

A sleeker production than previous entrants in this category, Swan Lake is faster with a tighter storyline and classier voice acting. Whilst the animation remains around video game quality, the little girls this is aimed at will hardly care because it’s Barbie®! No doubt any of these three Barbie® films are perfect for the Barbie® fan in your house, but if I had to choose, this is the sleekest yet and the one I’d go with.