Product Details

• Format: AC-3, Animated, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Universal Studios
• DVD Release Date: April 25, 2010
• Run Time: 81 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (157 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000GGSMNK
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,818 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

In Barbie in the 12 Dancing Princesses, Barbie will dance her way into your heart in this fun and enchanting all-new adventure. Join Barbie as the beautiful Princess Genevieve and her eleven dancing princess sisters as they discover a secret entrance to an amazing, magical world where wishes come true! But when their dad is in danger of losing his kingdom, Princess Genevieve and her sisters must work together in order to save the day and their dad. They learn that the power of family can overcome all obstacles! Directed by: Greg Richardson

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

45 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lovely return to basics from Barbie, fun, classic, great dancing, September 30, 2006

By 

A. Woodley "Patroness, Janeites, the Austen list" (New Zealand) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Barbie in The 12 Dancing Princesses (DVD)

A nice return to good Barbie movies. This is (loosely) based on the fairy tale of the 12 dancing princesses. Rewritten and remodelled for a Barbie-style ballet movie.

Genivieve is the 7th of 12 princesses. Her father calls for the Duchess Rowena to look after them as his wife is dead. The duchess has plans of her own, and with her strong-man servant and her monkey, she works to take over the kingdom and get rid of the 12 daughters. She starts by taking all the fun and colour out of their lives, trying to quash their spirit.

Genivieve, however, discovers a secret magical kingdom below the floor of their bedroom where the princesses can escape at night and dance the night away until morning. They have their dancing shoes from Eric, the Cobbler who also happens to be extremely gorgeous and nice - and not a little in love with Genivieve. When Rowena discovers the secret stairwell she seeks to trap the princesses down there forever. But toghether they escape, and rush to save their father who Rowena is attempting to kill.

It is a lovely movie, there is lots of dancing which is beautifully done given there are twelve characters it is easy to form nice chorus lines etc. 3 are little Kelly sized girls, there are 2 teenagers and the other 7 are adult sized. There could be some confusion, luckily they are named alphabetically from A to L according to age - unfortunately many have very un=princessy names like Lacey, Hadley and Courtenay.

The animation is lovely although there is an odd piece of oddity in the filming. For some reason near the end when Genivieve is luring Desmond away from his post she seems to go out of focus slightly, it might be my particular player.

There are some nice extra features, the making of the movie is excellent and my children were fascinated by it.

I really like the toning down of colours. The castle and environs looked colourful without the overwhelming brightness of some of the earlier movies.

Overall this is a great fun movie which my children have enjoyed a number of times and I also enjoyed. It can be watched many times and still find something new. I just hope that the Barbie makers will be working on another singing movie. the Princess and the Pauper still rates as the top Barbie movie ever - the songs were inspired and fun. My only real gripe on this movie is the enormous number of merchandise from this - 12 characters!

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Charming take on the children's story, October 26, 2006

By 

Marshall Lord (Whitehaven, UK) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Barbie in The 12 Dancing Princesses (DVD)

Before we first rented one of the Barbie videos for my daughter, I was expecting them to be trite, over-commercialised, and over-sugary. However, I have been pleasantly surprised.

Yes, they do have a lot of commercial spin-offs and a high saccarine count, but the quality of the Barbie films we have subsequently bought or rented, including "12 Dancing Princesses," was significantly higher than I had expected. They have not just kept my children engrossed for hours - including my son as well as my daughter - but introduced them to some beautiful stories and truly wonderful music. On more than one occasion I have been listening to a CD of a classic such as Beethoven's pastoral symphony, or The Queen of the Night's aria from Mozart's magic flute, and my daughter has recognised and expressed appreciation of the music, and correctly remembered which Barbie film had used it. ("Magic of Pegasus" and "Mermaidia" respectively.)

The soundtrack to "Twelve Dancing Princesses" is mostly adapted from some of Mendelsohn's best work, including "A Midsummer night's dream" and the Scottish and Italian symphonies. It also includes a lullaby sung to the King by the 12 princesses which was based on a 16th century anthem by Byrd, the recording of which was sung beautifully by Melissa Lyons and the Women's Occidental Glee club.

The story is loosely based on the children's story. "Barbie" plays "Princess Genevieve", the seventh of 12 daughters of a widowed King (e.g. seven young women, plus a pair of twins who appear to be about 11 and a set of triplets who appear to be about 6.) Like the original, the story is about 12 princesses who having been banned from dancing, sneak off every night through a magic passage and take a magic barge to a special island where they can dance all night. However, in this version the killjoy who tries to stop them dancing is not the King their father, who loves them very much, but his cousin, Duchess Rowena, who he has brought to the palace to be their tutor. At first even the princesses do not realise quite what a bad mistake this was ...

As with many of the Barbie films, comic relief is provided by talking animal companions of some of the principal characaters. In this case Princess Genevieve has a pet cat, and the evil Duchess Rowena has an equally evil pet monkey, Brutus. The hero, who in this version is the royal cobbler, Derek, has a pet parrot, who for some reason talks with a greatly exaggerated Indian accent. (That's Indian from the subcontinent, not native American.)

Those people who enjoy criticising what the Barbie franchise represents will not have much difficulty finding things in this production to sneer at. If you, or more importantly your kids, are allergic to an excess of twee sweetness, then this film and the Barbie videos generally may not be for them. And the female characters are all on the thin side of plausibility: I'm not worried that watching this is going to give my daughter anorexia as she likes food too much and has a good sense of the difference between fantasy and reality, but if you are worried that your children may be forming an unrealistic idea about how thin a healthy body shape is, that is a concern with this film.

But on the plus side: it is beautifully made, it will hold the attention of most small children for long enough for the typical exhausted parent to clear the mess they have made in several rooms of the house or collapse for an hour's rest after doing so. Alternatively there are enough more sophisticated jokes thrown in that you won't be completely bored to death if you decide to watch it with your offspring. And best of all, the soundtrack is almost worth buying the film for on it's own.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Really fun!, September 23, 2006

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Barbie in The 12 Dancing Princesses (DVD)

This movie is very nice.I like all the sisters,my favorite ones are Genevieve,Fallon, and Lacey!Twyla looks cute when she's dancing.:)I liked the part when they go into the magical world, and seeing it outside, that was really cool! I also liked the preview for Barbie Princess Collection; and Barbie Fairytopia: Magic of the Rainbow. I'm looking forward to buying it! ( But I have to wait a whole year. sigh. ) Anyway,I really like the Shine music video. The game on the disc is really short,I got bored of it. I really love the dvd,and the song the sisters sing to the triplets on their birthday! PS.I think Mattel should make 2 more musicals. Princess and the Pauper was so good!I don't want the first musical to be the last musical! PS.Please vote on my review!PS.The monkey Brutus,was SO rude. :(