Barbie and the Three Musketeers – Barbie and the Three Musketeers (2009)

Directed by: William Lau | 80 minutes | animation, family | Original voice cast: Kelly Sheridan, Tim Curry, Kira Tozer, Willow Johnson, Dorla Bell, Nicole Oliver, Merrilyn Gann, Kathleen Barr, Mark Hildreth, Michael Dobson, Bernard Cuffling, Brad Swaile, Amelia Henderson, Tabitha St. Germain, Brian Dobson, David Kaye, Terry Klassen, Alistair Abell, Brian Drummond, Maryke Hendrikse, Cassidy Ladden

Although they were published more than a century and a half ago, Alexandre Dumas’s novels are still a source of entertainment. It is therefore not surprising that many film makers get their inspiration from it. His name has been mentioned on the title role more than 220 times. By comparison, the queen of crime, Agatha Christie, is just over halfway there. Among all these film versions are undoubtedly productions that will make Dumas fans scratch their heads (d’Artagnan as a beagle in a cartoon from 1981, ‘D’Artacan y los tres mosqueperros’ for example). ‘Barbie and the three musketeers’ will certainly fall under this category as well. But the film is not intended for those people. The animation film is intended for young girls, for whom it is a fun viewing experience. In addition, it will be their first introduction to the world of the musketeers, and imparting historical knowledge, in whatever form, is never wrong.

Unlike other films in the franchise, ‘Barbie and the Three Musketeers’ does not have a frame story. So there is no introduction of Barbie, so the title is actually incorrect. Barbie here is Corinne, a farmer’s daughter, who lives somewhere in the French countryside. Her father was the famous d’Artagnan, one of the four (!) musketeers and actually the most famous. Corinne’s dream is to follow in her father’s footsteps. In the cow shed she practices it lustily, her opponent a straw scarecrow. She has an agreement with her mother that when she is seventeen she can go to Paris to visit her father’s mentor, Monsieur de Tréville, and ask him to train her. Together with her horse and cute kitty, who later in the film reminds of Puss in Boots from ‘Shrek’, she travels to the French capital. Once there, things don’t go smoothly: she is ridiculed (“girls can’t be musketeer”) and her father’s letter of recommendation for De Tréville is eaten by a fake dog. But Corinne shows perseverance and takes a job as a cleaning lady in the castle where the prince lives. Her three colleagues, girls her age, have a surprise in store for her!

‘Barbie and the three musketeers’ is, of course, far from historically correct. Apart from the story, you can also question the way in which Paris is portrayed in the seventeenth century. According to this American animation film, the streets in the French capital were determined by half-timbered houses, but in the period in which this film is set, their construction was even prohibited. Typical case of American laziness, which results in cliché images of European countries. It is to be hoped that there will never be a Barbie film set in the Netherlands, because then Barbie will get stuck on clogs and she will live in a mill. However, the makers consistently maintain the level of the animations; compared to previous Mattel productions, this one is not inferior. The songs are catchy (it even includes an EMF cover of “Unbelievable”) and the voice cast is reliable. It is true that the humor can be classified under the heading “bland and predictable”, but that does not alter the fact that girls up to the age of ten will enjoy this film.