PollyWorld

Polly Pocket's fabulously wealthy father has arranged for Polly and her classmates to appear on their favorite reality show, Roll Like That, to play for charity, but Polly's "spectaculous" gold-digging future stepmother teams up with requisite jealous mean girl Beth to arrange for Polly to be shipped off to boarding school. Polly is "lovely, adorable, smart, and talented." She's also "monster fabularific," "ginormous," "off the hook," and other pimply hyperboles (to borrow a line from A Hard Day's Night). The Polly Pockets toy line makes a Barbie-like leap to screen fiction with this produced-for-DVD animated feature that promotes positive character development (brains, talent, teamwork, sportsmanship) along with product placement. Add catchy Polly-pop tunes, some "fashion in a flash," and an uplifting ending that doesn't depend on Polly and her friends coming in first, and PollyWorld is tolerable children's fare—although the animation doesn't hold a candle to the CGI work of the Barbie releases. DVD extras include games, a music video, a DVD-ROM accessible fashion magazine, and downloadable wallpapers and coloring pages. Optional. Aud: P. (D. Liebenson)