Barney's Great Adventure--The Movie (G) ** (out of ****)
"I hate you/You hate me/Let's hang Barney from a tree." Count me among the many who simply cannot stand the Jesus Christ of kids' contemporary pop culture icons, Barney the dinosaur. As I walked into the child-packed auditorium for a matinee showing of the dino's big-screen splash, Barney's Great Adventure--The Movie, I took a deep breath in preparation for what I knew would be a descent into cinematic hell. And that it was--at least for someone my age.
The ostensible story involves two young siblings, Cody (Trevor Morgan) and Abby (Diana Rice), who are sent to their grandparents' farm home for a week. Abby and her (token African-American) friend Marcella (Kyla Pratt) are big Barney fans and devout followers of his gospel of imagination; stick-in-the-mud Cody hates doing "child-like" things and despises the dino. Before you can say "PBS," Abby and Marcella's stuffed Barney has come to full-size life, trying to instill some good ol' child-like imagination in Cody, who then wishes upon a star for a great adventure--which he gets, courtesy of a large, psychedelic egg of extraterrestrial origin that just won't stay in one place.
Of course, Barney can't go long without singing a song. His first appearance comes with a tune called "Imagine," and moments before Cody makes his wish, he leads the two girls in a rendition of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star." It is during this number that he encourages the audience to join in, at which point my already-cringing self was reaching for a vomit bag. The torture continued to escalate with an "Old McDonald" set piece (complete with the Barnmeister decked out in overalls) and, most excrutiatingly, a visit with bird expert Miss Goldfinch, which results in a full-blown production number whose appallingly inept choreography had me yearning for the halcyon days where Debbie Allen lent the Oscars her ever-innovative dance moves, such as having dancers hold up hula hoops during the 1995 "Circle of Life" number.
That should have been enough to send me bolting to the exit, but then I started to look at Barney's Great Adventure from a more academic perspective, at which point the film began to queasily fascinate. As we see the jolly dino and his friends visit a parade, a circus, and snooty French restaurant in pursuit of that elusive egg, I was oddly mesmerized by this creepy alternate universe where no one finds the sight of a plush, purple dinosaur (or for that matter, his lighter-shaded but equally plush sidekicks Baby Bop and B.J.) followed intently by a group of children the slightest bit unusual. When Barney takes to the restaurant stage and rocks the house with a jazzy little ditty, the snobby patrons are less taken aback (if at all) by his big, cuddly presence than they are by his less-than-formal behavior.
But I suppose films like Barney's Great Adventure rightfully demand some amount of suspension of disbelief, which will come rather easily for the film's target audience, preschool and pre-preschool aged children. And in terms of that audience, Barney's Great Adventure is completely harmless, if banal. Barney doesn't really teach anything to kids, but he does reinforce positive ideas--look both ways before crossing the street, believe in your dreams, keep a healthy imagination. Granted, the latter point is more thoroughly and entertainingly explored in any given episode of the delightful 1980s animated series Jim Henson's Muppet Babies, but the accomplishment of an entertainment that is magically able to keep the tykes in the audience virtually still and silent for a full 75 minutes cannot be discounted.
So, yes, Barney's Great Adventure--The Movie was a predictably mind-numbing experience for me; one would have to shell out some big bucks to get me to sit through it again. But even though I am at the younger end of the age spectrum for film critics, I am far older than the movie's intended audience, and that audience will likely eat up every last second of it. Although its entertainment value to adults is negligible, it is a safe, harmless bet for families, one parents will neither regret nor fondly remember after it's over.
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