Barbie Fairytopia: Mermaidia

Product Review

A musical story about the power of friendship and believing in oneself, Barbie and the Diamond Castle opens with Barbie and her friend Teresa singing, playing guitar, and relating a story about friendship to Stacy who's just had a disagreement with her best friend Courtney. In the story, friends Alexa and Liana loose everything but each other in a terrible storm. A chance meeting with an old woman brings them a new friend Melody, who shares their love of music, but is locked inside an enchanted mirror. It turns out that Melody is an apprentice muse who holds the secret key to the diamond castle and embodies the last chance to defeat the selfish muse Lydia and preserve music for the entire world. Alexa and Liana help Melody journey to the diamond castle, overcoming enormous obstacles conjured by Lydia and her serpent Slider as well as rising above a disagreement between themselves. This CGI animated program is colorful and bright, if not particularly realistic, and the pop music is appealing, but oddly out of sink with the renaissance style costuming. While the Barbie versions of classic stories like Barbie of Swan Lake or Barbie Prince and the Pauper generally offer better storylines, young Barbie fans will nonetheless enjoy this quest to save music while getting a sense of the importance of friendship and believing in oneself. (Ages 3 to 9) --Tami Horiuchi

Beyond Barbie and the Diamond Castle on DVD