Family Home Theater

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

Grade:  C+
Entire family:  No
2008-11, 12 episodes (168 min.), Color
Rated TV-G (aimed at younger children)
Disney
Aspect ratio:  1.78:1
Bonus features:  D
Featured audio:  Dolby Digital 2.0

Like Kim Possible, this animated Disney Channel show is aimed at elementary school children ages 6-10 but has a Fairly Oddparents and Pinky and the Brain style that might appeal to older siblings and a throwback vibe to the old Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons that makes it more tolerable for adults than most kid fare. But I wouldn’t rate this particular release one of the best, nor do all of the episodes have to do with “Animal Agents.”

On the plus side, the humor doesn’t come from disrespectful kids, and the children depicted actually like each other, even if they drive each other crazy from time to time. So from a parent’s perspective, it’s a fairly innocuous show and, let’s be fair, at least it celebrates inventiveness. More