Barbie & the Diamond Castle

Barbie and the Diamond Castle
Theatrical Release Poster
Directed by	Gino Nichele
Produced by	Nancy Bennett Luke Carroll
Written by	Elana Lesser Cliff Ruby
Starring	Kelly Sheridan Cassidy Ladden Maryke Hendrikse Kathleen Barr Jeremy From Noel Johansen
Music by	Arnie Roth
Edited by	Tim Jones
Production company	Rainmaker Entertainment Mattel Entertainment
Distributed by	Universal Studios Home Entertainment
Release date	September 9, 2008 (2008-09-09)
Running time	78 min.
Country	Canada United States
Language	English

Barbie and the Diamond Castle is a 2008 direct-to-video computer-animated friendship musical film and the 13th entry in the Barbie film series. The film features the voice of Kelly Sheridan as Barbie. It is the third musical in the series.

Songs for the film were written by Amy Powers, Guy Roche, Russ DeSalvo, Gabriel Mann, Megan Cavallari and Jeannie Lurie along with executive producer Rob Hundnut. "Connected", the main song, was sung by Katharine McPhee.

Plot

The movie begins with Barbie and her best friend Teresa trying to play a song on their guitars when Barbie's sister, Stacie, storms in, angry at her friend Courtney and calls her a 'backstabber'. Barbie decides to tell Stacie the story of two friends named Liana and Alexa, who also get angry at each other.

The two best friends live in a hut beside a beautiful garden and plant flowers to make a living. They also share a love of music. One day, they find two heart-shaped stones which they make into necklaces to symbolize their friendship, not realizing that they are trinkets from the mythical Diamond Castle. The next day, an old woman gives them a mirror after they share the last of their food with her. The mirror is the hiding place of Melody, an apprentice muse from the Diamond Castle. Melody is on the run from Lydia, one of former three muses who lived in the Diamond Castle. Lydia became evil and turned the other two muses to stone, but not before they hid the Castle and left the key with Melody. If Lydia finds the Diamond Castle, all music will end, and with it eventually the world. Liana and Alexa coax a song out of Melody by singing, and Lydia's minion, a dragon known as Slyder, locates Melody by her voice.

With their home destroyed by Slyder, Alexa and Liana go with Melody to find the Diamond Castle and keep it safe from Lydia. They find two small puppies and at an inn meet twin musicians named Ian and Jeremy, who hear the girls sing and instantly fall for them, but the girls leave them behind at the inn. Lydia confronts them, and tries to cast a spell on them with her flute, but the girls' necklaces protect them. Lydia sets Slyder on them, but Ian and Jeremy arrive and they all escape.

The girls, now with the twins, comes across a dead end but soon meet a dislikable troll who captures the boys and vows to eat them and not let the group cross his bridge unless the girls answer his riddles. They do, which frees the boys and reveals a rainbow bridge that carries the girls off, leaving the boys behind. Liana and Alexa soon run out of food. They find a mansion and go to ask for shelter, but the servants there, bewitched by Lydia, tell them that they are the long-awaited mistresses of the house. Alexa wants to stay, but Liana wants to honor the promise they made to Melody, resulting to an argument which turns to a fight. Liana leaves the house with Melody and Alexa stays, ripping off her magic necklace that symbolizes her friendship with Liana in anger. Slyder arrives and takes Alexa to Lydia. After determining that Melody is not with Alexa, Lydia uses her flute's powers against Alexa to find Liana, and because Alexa is not wearing her magical necklace, she falls under Lydia's spell. Alexa tells Lydia that Liana and Melody are heading to the seven stones, where the Diamond Castle is hidden.

After Liana is kidnapped, Lydia uses Alexa to scare Melody into revealing the whereabouts of the Diamond Castle. Although Lydia promises to release Liana and Alexa once the Diamond Castle is hers, Slyder knocks the two girls over a cliff, and they narrowly escape falling into acid by hanging onto a ledge. Liana realizes that the necklaces protected them from Lydia'a spell and uses Alexa's necklace to undo the spell and they climb up the cliff together. Alexa apologizes to Liana for their fight and Liana apologizes too. One of the puppies leads the twins to the girls and together they all head to the hiding place of the Diamond Castle.

Meanwhile, Melody stalls Lydia with false instructions about the key to the castle. The twins lure Slyder away and the girls pretend to fall under Lydia's spell. Lydia creates a whirlpool and commands the girls to jump in and drown, but Liana takes Lydia's flute instead. Lydia threatens to break Melody's mirror, but Melody breaks it herself, not wanting to let the Diamond Castle fall into Lydia's hands. Lydia throws the mirror in the whirlpool. Alexa saves Melody with the puppies' help and Liana drops Lydia's flute in the whirlpool. Lydia goes after it, but is caught in the flow. She tries to cast a spell, but her waterlogged flute backfires and she disappears instead.

The girls realize that the song Melody sang earlier is the key, and their singing is the true key of the Diamond Castle. As they step inside, Melody is released from the mirror and she leads Liana and Alexa to the other muses' instruments. Lydia suddenly returns on Slyder and attacks them. Melody saves the instruments from being turned to stone, and the girls play the instruments and sing, creating a barrier that turns Lydia's spells against her, turning both her and Slyder into stone.

The muses returned to life. They anointed Liana and Alexa as princesses of music, promoted Melody as the third muse and give Jeremy and Ian electric guitars. The muses offer Liana and Alexa to stay at the castle but they want to go home instead, so the muses give them flower seeds and send them on their way.

Back home, Liana and Alexa plant the magical flower seeds and beautiful flowers soon grow. Jeremy and Ian are successful in their performances with their electric guitars.

When the story ends, Stacie realizes nothing can break true friendship and with that, She calls Courtney to apologize after saying goodbye to Barbie and Teresa as they get back to playing their music.

Characters

• Kelly Sheridan as Barbie/Liana – Barbie stars as Liana, a 16-year-old peasant girl who shares a cottage in the forest with her best friend Alexa. Liana is loyal and brave. She's not afraid of tricky situations (except for thunder and lightning) and she loves to sing.
• Cassidy Ladden as Teresa/Alexa – Teresa also stars as the 16-year-old farmer girl, Alexa. She and Liana are best friends, though Alexa often wishes that they could live in grand style so they won't have to worry about anything. She believes in magic, and she has a silly sense of humor. She has a beautiful singing voice.
• Maryke Hendrikse as Melody – Melody used to be a 16-year-old apprentice to the two Muses of Music who live in the Diamond Castle. She was trapped inside the magic mirror while trying to hide from Lydia. She loves to sing in harmony with Liana and Alexa.
• Jeremy From as Jeremy and Noel Johansen as Ian – Jeremy and Ian are the 16-year-old twin brothers who sing and play guitar. They befriend Liana and Alexa and help them battle with Lydia on their way to the Diamond Castle.
• Kathleen Barr as Lydia – Lydia is an evil former Muse who wants Diamond Castle for herself, with the intention of making it gloomy. She plays her flute to use her evil spells. She is the main antagonist.
• Mark Acheson as Slyder – Slyder is a clumsy, flying serpent and assistant of Lydia. He is the second antagonist.
• Veena Sood as Sparkles/Lily – Sparkles, a cocker spaniel pup and Lily, West highland terrier pup, are a pair of adorable puppies. Liana and Alexa adopt them while on their journey to the Diamond Castle.
• Nicole Oliver as Dori and Heather Doerksen as Phaedra - The Muses of Music, who reside in the Diamond Castle and are gifted with magical musical abilities. Though there are only two of them, their numbers originally included Lydia, who cast a spell that turned all the residents in the Diamond Castle to stone.
• Glimmer – A magnificent winged horse that flies above the Diamond Castle.

Cast

Original Soundtrack

References

External links

• Barbie & the Diamond Castle on IMDb
• Barbie & the Diamond Castle at AllMovie
• Barbie & the Diamond Castle at Rotten Tomatoes