(straight to DVD)
Rated: unrated
Length: 56m
Age: 3 +
Scary factor: nonexistent
Interests: the Disney princess brand
A straight-to-DVD spinoff venture with a stupidly unwieldy title. In two short stories Princess Aurora (Sleeping Beauty) and Princess Jasmine each learn a Useful Lesson about Perseverance. In fact, the admonishment to persevere and work hard at your tasks is repeated so many times I couldn’t stop rolling my eyes. But my daughter, on the cusp of turning four, blurted this out at the end,
“Sleeping Beauty took the easy way and Jasmine took the hard way! Sleeping Beauty should have taken the hard way… because… it’s kind of complicated. The easy way is the hard way and the hard way is the easy way!”
Which makes me think that she understood the Lesson… maybe.
That said, the animation is passable (as opposed to other straight-to-DVD spinoffs), and have some funny gags that my daughter giggled over. If your child is particularly obsessed with one or another princess this gives them a little bonus tale, an everyday kind of story taking place after the “they lived happily ever after”.
There is a certain amount of tone-deaf dialogue, especially in the games included in the Special Features. A very proper, Julie Andrews-esque narrator with an upright British accent saying “Way to go!” is just bad writing!
Mediocre offering in general, but passable. Only for the princess-obsessed.
Rarest Kind of Best 