I had previously seen clips and a Christmas episode of the TV show starring the prehistoric pre-school character, then when I was about ten years old I asked for the VHS of this movie, as a joke (I'd seen the trailer), I didn't expect I would actually get it, but I sat down and watched it all the way through (I'm ashamed to see a few times). Basically Cody (Jurassic Park III's Trevor Morgan), his sister Abigail "Abby" (Diana Rice), their best friend Marcella (Kyla Pratt), and their baby brother Fig (twins David and Edouard Larouche) are dropped off by their parents to spend the summer with their Grandma (Shirley Douglas) and Grandpa (George Hearn) on their farm. Abby has brought along her stuffed purple and green Tyrannosaurus Rex doll Barney the dinosaur, Cody does not believe in magic, but with their imagination Abby and Marcella bring Barney (voiced by Bob West, performed by David Joyner) to life, and he is keen to entertain and join the children having fun, playing games and singing songs. At night Cody makes a wish on a shooting star to have a real adventure, and after walking away this star crashes to Earth into the barn, the next morning Barney and the kids discover a large colourful egg. With the suggestion of the grandparents, who think the kids are just playing, they go to visit Mildred Goldfinch, the "bird lady" (Renée Madeleine Le Guerrier), she tells them the egg contains a "dream maker", an alien creature that will show the dreams of children, the egg shell has five coloured rings that will light up one by one, when all rings light up it will be ready to hatch, but only in the spot where the egg was found, in the barn. Before they can return to the egg to the barn Cody knocks it out of Mrs. Goldfinch's house, and so an adventure begins for Barney, Cody, Abby and Marcella to recover it, as it is rolled and dropped from place to place, including in a parade, a French restaurant, the circus and a hot air balloon. Along the way Cody becomes much more open to fun and imagination, including convincing Abby and Marcella to join him and Barney into turning a log into an aeroplane, also green Triceratops Baby Bop (voiced by Julie Johnson, performed by Jeff Ayers) is looking for her yellow "blankie", and yellow Protoceratops BJ (voiced by Patty Wirtz, performed by Jeff Brooks) pop up now and then. Barney and the children do finally get the egg back, Grandma and Grandpa join them, seeing that the living dinosaur is real after all, they are joined by Baby Bop and BJ as the egg hatches, inside is a koala-like being named Twinken. The dream maker shows everyone Abby's dream, to be a jockey, this is the dream maker's gift, to show dreams more clearly, these dreams may come true, and Cody admits to Barney being mean before and that he thinks he's cool, Barney accepts his apology and they hug. Everyone is keen to see Barney's dream, Twinken shows a magical fireworks display covering the house, Barney explains that his dream is to have a special time and a special place and sharing it with everyone he loves. Twinken lands back in Barney's arms, and he starts to sing "I Love You", with everyone joining in, Baby Bop and BJ leave to go home, and the film ends with Barney turning back into a doll with Twinken sitting next to him. Also starring Alan Fawcett as Dad, Jane Wheeler as Mom, Alain Gendreau as Maitre D', Michael Davis as The Juggler, Steffen Foster as The Collector and James Lebrecht as the voice of Twinken. The episode I saw of Barney & Friends was frustrating, as the children had almost forced smiles while performing with him, I would not expose my child to this "entertainment", in the TV show and in this film Barney the purple dinosaur may be popular with the children, but having grown up I find him rather annoying and overly childish, it is very likely he is gay as well, the children performers are okay. This film doesn't have massive special effects, and it is full of easy to singalong nursery rhymes and new songs for the younger audience, but there's not much the adults watching will get out of it, the younger audience members watching will be happy to go along with it, but overall it is a rather dreadful, overly sugary and predictable fantasy adventure. It was nominated the Razzies for Worst Original Song for "Barney, The Song" and Worst New Star for Barney. Pretty poor!
Review of Barney's Great Adventure
