Barney was huge in the early 90s, he was parodied in pretty much everything that came out which in a way killed his popularity since there was nothing more uncool than liking Barney the dinosaur, and yet he still had a Hollywood theatrical movie in 1998 called Barney’s Great Adventure: The Movie. Unlike other videos released on VHS and specials, this was the real deal as a feature film, with a reboot for film happening, this one huge fan is more than happy to finally check it out and see what it’s all about.
We start with a family of Cody, Abby, and Fig Newton along their friend Marcela and they have a Barney doll who is indeed the real Barney, who knows where Barney’s other normal school friends are but that’s ok, I’m sure they didn’t have the acting skills for an actual film. I decided to watch the VHS version for a real experience which included an out of place commercial for Cats the musical on home video, barney videos including one where you can make yourself. What can I say, I was really curious to check out a movie about Barney after having watched the original movie I had from him.
The movie actually uses the same Barney suit from the show and it looks as fake as ever and it’s weird seeing that suit in something that seems high budget. In fact the movie feels really weird, not quite a high budget movie kinda feel because it looks so cheap at times but also not as cheap as the actual show, so in a way it feels like a very high budget tv show. At least I can say it for the most part keeps it true to the source material from the show even if having an adventure so that’s something.
Cody being the cool kid doesn’t want to believe Barney is real like a Santa Claus movie despite him being there and appearing out of nowhere freaking everyone out. The movie begins with a lot of songs and many that are common domain though there are a few original ones that aren’t bad. I still feel that the movie is really for very young kids but they might not be able to sit through the whole movie since the target audience would get distracted. At 76 minutes, it feels too long for what it is, yet somehow it didn’t feel overly long so who knows, perhaps the right decisions were made in the timing.
Cody doesn’t like Barney because he is not cool like Professional Wrestling and I can’t say I don’t agree with him, I likely replaced barney for WWF as well but I still loved him deep inside, and so does Cody. So he wishes to be on an adventure and Barney grants the wish with an egg, the kids don’t know what to do so they visit an egg lady. Eventually they lose the egg because of various reasons and they need to go to different places. This leads us to Barney singing in a fancy French restaurant, did you know barney speaks french? Well Barney speaks French in this movie and you could too.
They also go to a circus, Barney in a cart and in the city is amusing. We have Baby Bop appear looking for her blankie and talking to the audience breaking the fourth wall which is not relaed to the plot at all, she also appears randomly doing the same later and it’s great. PJ is in one of the crowds in a non-speaking cameo but later gets to act like a douche with some kids that even Barney wants to get away and not deal with his crap at that moment, I mean the flippin’ egg is in peril. BJ and Baby Bop do make a cameo in the restaurant and in the end where she also finally finds her blanket.
Barney does ask not only the kids but the audience watching to pretend that they can do stuff like fly, which is definitely a musing. We do see that the egg has some weird creature that looks out of Eureka’s castle and Cody feels like a big d foofus for not liking Barney before the adventure, but barney thinks he’s cool too! Twinkle the creature flies without moving his legs or anything, just floats off and starts to sparkle as if they had finished all their budget by then. And of course, the encore since you can’t end a movie without the I love you, you love me song. Definitely a weird movie, not a bad one necessarily, just aimed at a younger audience but easier to get through than many other films ironically enough, you rock you big purple dinosaur.
