One distinctive aspect of Mainframe/Rainmaker’s Barbie films is always their flat visual style. In the early efforts, the stories felt as though they were generated by formula, while the animation made the characters flat and glassy. The later efforts from around 2004 onwards put a huge amount of effort into crafting an incredibly vibrant palette of colours, seemingly as though determined to use the full spectrum in every scene. It is possible to run all the Barbie films alongside one another chronologically and see the advance of Mainframe’s animation skill with each one. By the time of Barbie & the Diamond Castle, the quality of Rainmaker’s animation has become dazzling. The opening shot is a pan around Barbie’s apartment with her and her friend playing guitar that comes with a depth that it almost puts one right into the frame. Mainframe/Rainmaker have also invested a good deal into the 3D architecture with the girl’s cottage, Lydia’s cave and the diamond castle itself all having solidity like one could move around inside and look at the floor plans. (The sole exception being the visit to the village where the buildings look flat and hold no internal depth to them, exactly as though they were obviously painted backgrounds in a live-action film).

While Mainframe/Rainmaker’s quality of animation makes vast strides with each film, there has been no corresponding improvement in the stories. With Barbie & the Diamond Castle, they have made a big effort to bring the characters to life – the two girls joke and banter with one another as though modern teenage girls and there is a degree of humour in the writing of their dialogue. On the minus side, the dragon Slyder looks too cute to be threatening and is voiced in a way that makes him sound like a moron. However, the result is a cut above the rest of Mainframe/Rainmaker’s Barbie films in its sense of humour, characters and visual depth – it is the first of these films that does not feel like it is formula.

Mainframe/Rainmaker reintroduce songs with The Diamond Castle – each of these comes delivered with a technical proficiency but little in the way of genuine feeling. There is an interesting idea to the film that music is a form of magic that has its own power (this is clearly a film written by musicians and/or music lovers). The underlying message the film pushes is of best friends remaining loyal through everything, which it lays on with a trowel.
 

Trailer here:-