Barbie as Rapunzel (2002)

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General		Extras
Category	Childrens	Main Menu Introduction Menu Animation & Audio Featurette-The Artist In Me Audio-Only Track-Help
Rating
Year Of Production	2002
Running Time	83:32
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (59:55)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Owen Hurley
Studio Distributor	Mattel Entertainment Universal Pictures Home Video	Starring	Anjelica Huston Kelly Sheridan Cree Summer
Case	?
RPI	$36.95	Music	Arnie Roth

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	None	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	Yes, uhmm, the entire film? :-)
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Barbie as Rapunzel follows in the footsteps of Barbie In The Nutcracker, and represents the second movie-length computer-animated film featuring none other than Barbie - the beloved doll of many girls (and I suspect some boys) the world over.

    Unfortunately, Ken isn't here. He stayed back at the hotel ... oops, sorry, wrong plot. There is a Ken-like character called Prince Stefan (Mark Hildreth) in the storyline though, and no prizes for guessing who he's romantically linked to.

    Most of the plot is contained in a story within a story. The film opens with Barbie (Kelly Sheridan) painting a lovely picture containing a castle next to a beach. Her young friend Kelly (Chantal Strand) is despondent because she can't decide what to paint. Barbie tells Kelly that the secret is to imagine or dream up a story and let the inspiration guide the paintbrush. To help Kelly along, Barbie starts explaining the story behind her painting, which is the story of "Rapunzel."

    Those of you who vaguely recall the fairy tale of Rapunzel the princess with the long hair locked away in a high tower until she is rescued by her charming prince who climbed the tower using her hair as a rope ... well, forget that, because Barbie's tale is different. It's actually a clever mixture of elements from several fairy tales and Disney films, but the resulting plotline is "original." Interestingly, there is a sly reference to the original fairy tale, but told as a dream experienced by Rapunzel (hmm, a story within a story within a story ...)

    Basically, Rapunzel (Kelly Sheridan) - looking uncannily like a medieval version of Barbie (I wonder why that is? Perhaps the title of the film might offer a clue?) - is a girl who is locked in a big house deep in the middle of the forest surrounded by some sort of magical force field. She is forced to do all sorts of menial chores by her guardian/foster mother Gothel (Anjelica Huston). She is forbidden to venture out into the big world and her only friends are a young dragon called Penelope (Cree Summer) and a rabbit with a Cockney accent called Hobie (Ian James Corlett).

    One day, Barbie ... oops ... Rapunzel discovers an underground basement underneath her room, containing amongst other things a hairbrush which is a gift from her supposedly dead parents. The basement seems to lead to an underground secret passage that leads to the outside where there is a quaint little village and an impressive Disneyland-like castle. In the castle gardens, she rescues one of Prince Stefan's sisters and gets to meet Stefan. Needless to say, they are both attracted to each other.

    Unfortunately, Gothel's pet Otto (Peter Kelamis) learns about Rapunzel's trip to the outside world. In a fit of rage, Gothel uses her magical powers to create a tower and locks Rapunzel in the tower. Gothel is also determined to find out who this person Rapunzel has been seeing is. In the meantime, Prince Stefan is frantically searching for Rapunzel ...

    I won't reveal any more of the story, but there are some interesting twists and turns. The ability to paint your imagination and turn it into reality turns out to be a key element of the plot. I found the film watchable and entertaining. However, the animation seems to be computer generated, and looks a lot like a computer game, complete with stiff 3D characters gliding around the screen.

Video

    The transfer is in widescreen 1.78:1, and is 16x9 enhanced.

    The transfer appears a lot sharper than Barbie In The Nutcracker, in fact very reminiscent of a computer game. Indeed, the entire film appears to be generated using a 3D animation engine, as the movements are somewhat stylised, artificial and over-smooth.

    The transfer looks like a direct digital transfer. Detail levels are very high, and in the scenes in the banqueting hall in the castle, the reflections of the castle walls and ceilings on the polished floorboards are so detailed it's as if I was looking at a mirror.

    However, I noticed persistent and rather annoying instances of aliasing and shimmering, which leads me to suspect that the transfer may have been upconverted from NTSC to PAL.

    Despite this rather short film (83:32) being spread across both layers of an RSDL disc, the transfer exhibits a number of minor compression artefacts, including posterization and macro blocking, particularly in backgrounds that are mainly monochromatic. Given that transfer rates are consistently high, I don't think these artefacts are the result of over-compression - more likely they are due to not enough care taken as part of the encoding process.

    There are no subtitle tracks on this disc.

    The layer change occurs at 59:55 and is reasonably well placed, although it does result in a noticeable pause in the scene.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There is only one audio track on this disc: English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s).

    In general, the audio track is quite pleasant to listen to, and I was surprised to discover it wasn't as front focused as I thought it would be, and there are subtle instances of Foley effects as well as ambience being directed towards the rear speakers. However, I did feel that the audio track sounds like a Dolby Stereo mix rather than a true 5.1 mix as the rear channels were not highly differentiated.

    The subwoofer is also very lightly used to enhance the low frequencies.

    The dialogue is crystal clear and I did not notice any issues with audio synchronization.

    The film credits Arnie Roth as the composer but the music sounds very very familiar - in fact, apart from a few exceptions (such as the music over the end titles) the music appears to be excerpts from Antonín Dvorák's Symphony No.9 ‘From the New World’ in E minor Op. 95.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    There's only one real extra on the disc, but it's a decent one - a half an hour featurette about female painters.

Menu

    The main menu is 16x9 enhanced and feature animation and background audio. When you select a menu item, a voice-over introduces the item.

Featurette - The Artist In Me (26:03)

    This is presented in full frame and Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s), although some of the footage is actually widescreen letterboxed. Unfortunately, there is a loud "click" after the voice-over introducing this menu item just prior to the featurette being presented.

    The documentary mainly features an extended interview with a young artist called Amanda Dunbar. It also includes animated "mini-documentaries" on famous women artists of the past, such as:

• Sophonisba Angusciola
• Alma Thomas
• Mary Cassat

    Finally, there are lots and lots of soundbite interviews with kids about art.

Audio Only Track - Help (1:07, 1:06)

    This is an audio only track featuring the voice of "Barbie" explaining the basic controls of a DVD remote, followed by a looped selection of music. The audio track is Linear PCM 2.0 48/16

    The Region 4 version of this disc misses out on;

• Pan & Scan (1.33:1) version
• English Dolby Digital 2.0 surround-encoded audio track and English closed captions
• Rapunzel’s Art Gallery game
• Dress Up Rapunzel game
• Trailers (Barbie In The Nutcracker, Ice Age)
• DVD-ROM content

    The Region 1 version of this disc misses out on;

• nothing

    I don't know why we don't get all the extras of the Region 1 version. Also, I suspect the Region 1 NTSC video transfer will not contain the persistent aliasing and shimmering present in the R4 version, which would make it the winner.

    Barbie As Rapunzel is the second computer animated film featuring Barbie. Whilst not really a sequel to Barbie In The Nutcracker, it shares similar concepts including the use of nested stories, a loose association with a fairy tale, and some connection to the arts (painting instead of ballet). The storyline is actually not too bad.

    The video quality is excellent apart from persistent aliasing/shimmering and minor posterization/macro-blocking.

    The audio quality is good.

    Extras are limited to a half an hour documentary.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall