Barbie Mariposa and Her Butterfly Fairy Friends – Barbie Mariposa and Her Butterfly Fairy Friends (2008)

Directed by: Conrad Helten | 75 minutes | animation, family, fantasy | Original voice cast: Chiara Zanni, Tabitha St. Germain, Kathleen Barr, Erin Mathews, Nicole Oliver, Alessandro Juliani, Cathy Weseluck, Alistair Abel, Kelly Sheridan, Lee Tockar, Cathy Weseluck, Terry Klassen, Lee Tockar, Jane Barr, David Kaye | Dutch voice cast: Ingeborg Wieten, Meghna Kumar, Barbara Donse, Emmelie Zipson, Nienke Brinkhuis, Levi van Kempen, Eva Burmeister, Hans Hoekman, Laura Vlasblom, Lee Tockar, Cathy Weseluck, Fred Meijer, Marcel Jonker, Donna Vrijhof, Merel Burmeister, Rosanne Thesing

One of the first dolls with adult features, Barbie has been around for decades, accompanying many a girl on her way into the teenage years. The first Barbie doll saw the light of day in 1959 and for years the slender doll with feminine shapes, thanks in part to the many accessories and versions, has been growing in popularity. Just after the turn of the century, a real doll war broke out when MGA Entertainment released Bratz dolls. Mattel, the multi-million dollar company behind Barbie, lost quite a bit of their market share and lawsuits followed one after the other. The war is not over yet, but one of Mattel’s strong points is the series of animated films that have been released around the style icon.

Barbie: Mariposa and Her Butterfly Fairy Friends is the newest addition to the family. Of course, the film is aimed at the same audience for which the puppets are intended, but the nice thing is that the animation is also worth seeing for parents. The fairytale story is more than sufficiently developed and even manages to surprise on several points. Clichés abound, but the makers have also managed to avoid some, giving the story a different twist than you’d expect. The message of the film is superimposed, in fact, by literally showing the sentence on screen (The most beautiful thing you can be is yourself) the margin that someone would have missed it, only narrows. But luckily it doesn’t irritate; after all, it is also a way of life that you would like to pass on to your children.

‘Barbie: Mariposa’ is a frame story, the film starts when Barbie, in the role of Elina (Dutch voice: Laura Vlasblom, original voice: Kelly Sheridan) notices that her boyfriend Bibble the fluffball is afraid to hit the friends of his girlfriend Dizzle. To help him with this, Elina tells him a story, the story of her friend Mariposa (Dutch voice: Ingeborg Wieten, original voice: Chiara Zanni). She also feels like an outsider: unlike other butterfly fairies who live in the distant kingdom of Fladderveld, she longs for the world outside this Fladderveld. The fact that there are Viezels (in English “Skeezites”), for whom a meal of butterfly fairies is not to be sneezed at, hardly frightens her. Between her work for the bossy and spoiled twin sisters Rayna and Rayla, which she does with her friend Willa, Mariposa hardly has time to dream, but one day she bumps into Flutterveld’s most wanted bachelor, Prince Carlos. Their meeting does not last long, but Mariposa still impresses the prince with her knowledge of the world outside Fladderveld, which she has gained through much reading, and when he is in need, he quickly calls for her help. Queen Marabella, Carlos’ mother, is slowly being poisoned, and Mariposa has to search for the antidote. Only, that poison can only be found when she leaves Fladderveld…

Of course Rainmaker Animation doesn’t have the budget that a Disney or Pixar has at its disposal, but the animation studio knows how to make the butterfly fairies a lovely people, with the purple, blue and deep pink colors being the most represented. The world of the butterfly fairies is enchantingly depicted, with funny details and fun figures. ‘Barbie: Mariposa’ is a fun movie that many little girls will love to see.