Barbie as Rapunzel

The story is told by Barbie to her little sister, Kelly, who is insecure in her painting abilities.

Rapunzel is a young woman with long, floor-length hair who lives as a servant to the wicked witch Gothel, residing in a magically secluded manor in the woods. She finds companionship in Penelope, a young dragon and Hobie, an anxious rabbit. She spends her time painting pictures of places she dreams of going when she is free one day; Gothel disapproves of this, accusing Rapunzel of being ungrateful to the witch for supposedly saving her from abandonment as a baby.

One day, Rapunzel and her friends inadvertently open a secret passage to the basement, where Rapunzel finds a gift from her birth-parents: a silver hairbrush engraved with a message affirming their love for Rapunzel; this leads Rapunzel to question Gothel's story. Through a tunnel, Rapunzel is led to the kingdom outside, where she saves Princess Katrina from a pit trap with the help of her brother, Prince Stefan. He tells her the trap was set by King Wilhelm, the ruler of an opposing kingdom who has an ongoing feud with Stefan's dad, King Frederick. Rapunzel leaves in a rush without learning Stefan's name to avoid Gothel discovering her disappearance. However, Gothel's pet ferret Otto, who had followed her, informs his mistress of Rapunzel meeting a man. When Rapunzel insists she doesn't know who he is, her paintings are destroyed and her room transformed into a high tower, with Penelope's dad Hugo tasked with ensuring she doesn't leave, threatening to punish him if he fails. As Rapunzel sleeps, the hairbrush magically transforms into a paintbrush.

When Rapunzel attempts to use the brush, a mural of the kingdom magically appears on her wall, which acts as a portal. Rapunzel uses it to meet Stefan again, though she insists he never tell her his name for fear of Gothel. Stefan gives her an invitation to the masquerade ball that night. Back at the tower, Rapunzel paints herself a beautiful costume. Unfortunately, Otto swipes Rapunzel's invitation and takes it to his mistress. Gothel cuts off Rapunzel's hair, shatters the paintbrush, and destroys the portal to the kingdom. When Rapunzel once again cannot give Stefan's name, Gothel puts a spell on the tower to never release its lying prisoner, and imprisons Hugo for his failures to keep Rapunzel from leaving.

With the help of her friends, Rapunzel escapes the tower, as she never lied about not knowing Stefan's name, therefore rendering the spell ineffective on her. At the ball, Stefan is attacked by a disguised Gothel wearing Rapunzel's hair; King Wilhelm also infiltrates the castle and accuses Frederick of kidnapping his daughter many years ago—the source of the feud; Gothel reveals that she was the one who took Wilhelm's daughter, Rapunzel, due to her unrequited love for him, wanting the kingdoms to destroy each other. Rapunzel arrives and Wilhelm recognizes her as his daughter. An enraged Gothel turns her attention towards Rapunzel, but she tricks Gothel into running into her painting of the tower, where she becomes permanently imprisoned for her lies and cannot undo the spell; this frees Hugo from his imprisonment. When she demands Hugo to help free her, he refuses in retaliation for her betrayal and reminds her of her lying heart.

Rapunzel is reunited with her biological parents and marries Stefan. The feud ends, and the two kingdoms are united. In the end, Kelly feels better and begins painting after Barbie reminds her that creativity is the true magic in art.

• Kelly Sheridan as Barbie / Rapunzel
• Chantal Strand as Kelly / Princess Katrina
• Anjelica Huston as Gothel, the witch
• Mark Hildreth as Prince Stefan
• Cree Summer as Penelope
• David Kaye as Hugo / General
• Ian James Corlett as Hobie / Palace Guard
• Peter Kelamis as Otto / The Skinny Swordsman
• Christopher Gaze as King Wilhelm
• Russell Roberts as King Fredrick
• Terry Klassen as The Baker / The Fat Swordsman
• Britt McKillip as Melody
• Jocelyne Loewen as Lorena
• Danny McKinnon as Tommy
• Dale Wilson as the Silversmith

Barbie as Rapunzel was the second film produced by Mainframe Entertainment for Mattel, following Barbie in the Nutcracker (2001). Barbie as Rapunzel was produced over a nine-month period. The characters were animated using Softimage V.3.9, with Maya used for special effects. Performances for the 15 human characters were motion-captured over 16 days, and created using Motion Analysis, EVA and Kaydara Filmbox. Motion capture data was also purchased from LocoMotion Studios in Wimberley, Texas for use in animating a CGI horse. The rest of the animal characters were animated using keyframe techniques.[7] Motion capture performer Cailin Stadnyk portrayed Barbie's movements.[8]

Rapunzel's paintings are real art works by Amanda Dunbar digitally inserted into the film.[9] Dunbar agreed to participate in the project because she "like[d] that the movie encourages art as a use of expression."[10]

Barbie as Rapunzel features the original song "Constant as the Stars Above", written by Rob Hudnut and Arnie Roth, and performed by Jessica Brown. The song is heard as a 30-second lullaby in the film and reprised as a 2-and-a-half-minute version during the closing credits, after Samantha Mumba's "Wish Upon a Star".[11] "Rapunzel's Theme" is performed by Becky Taylor. Roth composed the score, which was performed by the London Symphony Orchestra.

The film makes use of Antonín Dvořák's Symphony No. 9, "From The New World" (also known as the New World Symphony), while the music playing when Rapunzel is visiting the village is "Volte", from Michael Praetorius’ Terpsichore.[12][13]

The DVD and VHS was released on October 1, 2002.

The DVD bonus features include the 26-minute documentary, "The Artist in Me", which profiles artist Amanda Dunbar along with interviews of children commenting on art and what inspires them.[14] The DVD also has two interactive features: dress-up game "Dress-Up Rapunzel", and "Rapunzel's Art Gallery", a visual tour of paintings by famous artists teaching the difference between landscape, portrait and other styles of painting.[11][15]

The film was distributed overseas by Entertainment Rights, who acquired distribution rights in March 2002 following the immense success of Barbie in the Nutcracker.[5] Universal Pictures Visual Programming acquired worldwide video rights in May 2002, also following on with the success, while ER's home video subsidiary Right Entertainment handled video distribution in the United Kingdom and Ireland through its own separate deal with Universal.[1]

• Barbie as Rapunzel at IMDb
• Barbie as Rapunzel at AllMovie
• Barbie as Rapunzel at Rotten Tomatoes