Family Home Theater

Grade:  C
Entire family:  No
2014, 73 min., Color
Universal
Rated G
Aspect ratio:  1.78:1
Featured audio:  DTS-HD MA 5.1
Includes:  Blu-ray, DVD, UV Copy
Bonus features:  C+
Trailer

Not 10 minutes into Barbie: The Pearl Princess my 12-year-old daughter remarked, “I like these movies, but they really need to do something different. Every time it’s either a princess, a fairy, or a mermaid.”

There’s no relief in sight, either, because the next direct-to-video full-length animated feature in the Barbie franchise will be Barbie in the Secret Garden—which apparently features a princess, a fairy, AND a mermaid.

If there’s a series that’s grown more tired than the Barbie movies, I can’t think of it. There isn’t an original idea to be found in this most recent installment—yet little girls will love it, while girls age 9 to 12 will still watch despite bemoaning how repetitive the series has become. For anyone else, this “original” movie apparently draws way too much from Disney’s The Little Mermaid, DreamWorks’ Shark Tale, and every Barbie movie that’s preceded it.   More

Grade:  C+
Entire family:  Not really
2002, 72 min., Color
Disney
Rated G
Aspect ratio:  1.66:1
Featured audio:  DTS-HD MA 5.1
Includes:  Blu-ray, DVD, Digital Copy
Bonus features:  C-
Trailer

Admit it, moms and dads. The minute you see a “2” or “II” on a Disney title, doesn’t it trigger a silent consumer alert somewhere in your buying brain?  Sure, The Return of Jaffar (that awful Aladdin direct-to-dumb video sequel) put everyone on guard. But since then, except for a Hercules follow-up with bargain-basement animation, the never-ending sequels have been mostly well done, even if they’re shadows of the original and about as original themselves as Saturday morning cartoons.

Nostalgia is a powerful force, and the original 1967 Disney theatrical release of The Jungle Book has evolved from a minor studio success to a baby boomer classic that the new Disney crew wanted to re-do. This sequel ought to be a hit with young kids, but boomers and anyone over the age of 10 will find The Jungle Book 2 wanting. The characters giggle too much (as hyper-cute Saturday morning animated offerings will do), the music isn’t as well integrated into the story, and the humans come across like an Indian version of The Cosby Show.  More

Grade:  B-
Entire family:  No
2013, 75 min., Color
Unrated (would be G)
Universal
Aspect ratio:  1.78:1
Featured audio:  DTS-HD MA 5.1
Includes:  Blu-ray, DVD, UV copy
Bonus features:  C-
Trailer

In Barbie & Her Sisters in A Pony Tale, Barbie, Skipper, Stacie, and Chelsea go to a riding academy in the Swiss Alps and young viewers learn a little about horses.

It’s Barbie meets My Little Pony, but Universal can’t exactly play up that angle because Barbie is a Mattel property and My Little Pony belongs to Hasbro. Still, the shape of the mysterious horses called “Majestiques” and their overly long and lush manes remind you of those flowing equine tresses little girls used to brush as they hummed the commercial theme song.

Of course, all of the Barbie movies are about product placement, and this latest film gives Mattel all sorts of character sets and accessories to sell. As for the film itself, my daughter (a big fan of the Barbie movies) tells me it’s pretty average for the series, and that’s how it struck me as well.   More

Grade:  B+
Entire family:  No
2011, 570 min. (20 episodes), Color
Not Rated (for children)
PBS
Aspect ratio:  16×9
Featured audio:  Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Bonus features:  D
Includes:  5 discs in 4 slim keep cases with slipcase
Trailer

It’s not exactly family movie night material, but episodes of Wild Kratts—a half-animated, half-live nature show featuring the brothers who gave us Zoboomafoo—will entertain and inform children ages 3-8.

Chris and Martin Kratt’s series, which airs on PBS KIDS GO, is a hybrid that combines the brothers’ nature show activities with a cartoon segment that feels like a cross between The Magic School Bus and a Disney animated series like Kim Possible or Phineas and Ferb.

Each episode of Wild Kratts: Wildest Animal Adventures begins with the real-life brothers in the wild, pointing out an animal with a curious trait—say, for example, the Basilisk lizard that can walk and run on water—and then the brothers morph into cartoon versions of themselves in order to explore the animal’s “powers” and, with the help of a suit that looks a little like a cousin to Iron Man’s, acquire that animal power. It all happens within the animated framework of a story that often involves saving a particular animal from human encroachment, a world problem, or even a Disney-style villain. Though the characters seem unnecessary, there’s also a crew at the computer center in Tortuga helping the brothers once they’ve transformed or are on their way in various animal-shaped vehicles to get a better look. It’s clearly a way to include children of both genders in the show, but they really feel like window dressing, and some children will prefer more nature footage to the Tortuga gang “interruptions.”  More

Grade:  B
Entire family:  No
2012, 48 min. TV pilot, Color
Rated G
Disney Junior
Aspect ratio:  1.78:1 “enhanced” widescreen
Featured audio: Dolby Digital 2.0
Bonus features:  Just a sing-along option
Trailer

What do you get when you mix the Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty fairy tales with a wand-wave of Disney’s live-action Princess Diaries?

Well, if you use Playhouse Disney-style CGI animation and gear it toward preschoolers, you get Sofia the First: Once Upon a Princess, the 48-minute pilot for a Disney Junior TV series that drew 5.2 million viewers when it first aired.

Disney took some heat over a character who may or may not be Latina enough, and of course there came the usual outcry that it’s yet another attempt to indoctrinate little girls into the princess mindset, training them to be lifetime believers in the dream and consumers of the product tie-ins. But let’s not forget that fairy tales have been around since the 1600s, and at least Disney has refined the lessons to be learned so that they include such positive values as independence, determination, hard work, kindness, generosity, poise, and being true to oneself.  More

Grade:  C+
Entire family:  No
2013, direct-to-video, 75 min., Color
Not rated (would be G)
Universal
Aspect ratio:  1.78:1
Featured audio:  Dolby Digital 5.1
Bonus features:  D
Includes: Blu-ray, DVD, Digital Copy, UV
Trailer

This one’s for family movie night only if your children are ballet loving girls under the age of 12.

Universal and Mattel have been recycling plots for their animated direct-to-video Barbie movies since the very beginning, when they riffed off a Tchaikovsky ballet to create Barbie in The Nutcracker (2001).  With Barbie in The Pink Shoes—the 24^th full-length feature in the popular series—they return to ballet.

It’s based on The Red Shoes, a fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen about a girl whose dance shoes take control and keep her dancing and dancing, though she wishes them to stop. Andersen’s is a cautionary tale for vain and selfish children, but in Barbie in The Pink Shoes the shoes are more like the ruby slippers that transported Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz.  Here they’re pink, and our light-footed heroine is magically beamed into the “real” ballets that she’s been dancing (or has wanted to dance) for years.

Barbie plays Kristyn (voiced by Kelly Sheridan), a ballerina who aspires to be a prima donna. Her dance company’s artistic director gets on her for dancing how she feels, rather than classically with the routines that were choreographed for her. Her friend, Hailey (whom, I confess, reminds me a bit of Velma on Scooby-Doo!) is close enough to her when she puts on the magic shoes from the prop room that she too is transported inside the world of ballet:  Giselle, Swan Lake, and (sort of) The Nutcracker. More

Grade:  B
Entire family:  No
2012, 57 min., Color
Not rated (pre-school)
Universal
Aspect ratio:  1.78:1
Featured audio:  Dolby Digital 5.1
Bonus features:  F
Trailer

This direct-to-video offering is strictly for preschoolers, but parents and siblings who’ve read aloud their share of Curious George books will judge that Curious George Swings into Spring is well done. Executive producers Ron Howard and Brian Grazer and company get back to basics with this one, following the overly long Curious George 2: Follow That Monkey and its Man with the Yellow Hat-less plot.

The screenplay comes from Joe Fallon, whose writing credits include Arthur and the Curious George TV series, As with the TV show, it’s based on the popular picture books by Margret & H.A. Rey, who took the first Curious George manuscript with them when they fled Paris in 1940.

Featured here are the same cartoon voices, animation and background styles as in the TV series. Cartoon voice legend Frank Welker (Scooby-Doo!) returns to provide the monkey noises that George makes, along with other minor characters, while Jeff Bennett gives voice to The Man with the Yellow Hat and others. Grey Delisle (Scooby-Doo!) and Winnie the Pooh voice talents Jim Cummings and Kath Soucie also turn up on the end credits. More