Barbie is Lazy.
The premise is good, the set design of Barbie Land is exceptional (but Lazy, because I suspect, they just exactly replicated mattel’s toys/costumes). The set of Mattel Office was great is the only original element in the film. However, they persistently pad the movie, diminishing its value.
The parody of 2001 was enjoyable, until it extended for too long, similar to the one of Saving Private Ryan. Additionally, employing these 2 well-known scenes felt lazy. If I were to ask ChatGPT about the ten most recognized scenes in cinema, these two would certainly be on the list. Including them gave the impression that the entire movie had been dumbed down, like the over-explanation of the joke.
The Jokes:
I chuckled at the beginning when Barbie upstairs when to the left and then appeared downstair on the left. Subsequently, they explained that she didn’t need to move in Barbie Land.
I also chuckled when I saw the pink white-house, but someone felt the need to point out that it was pink.
I chuckled from the high-heel foot position. Although it later became an unnecessary (cellulit and though of death was enough) and inexplicable plot point (as the human playing don’t have feet problem) .
I chuckled when the Mattel boardroom displayed all male figures, but this was later pointed out, detracting from the humor.
Padding:
The travel scene between the real world and Barbie Land occurred 3 or 4 times. The song “Because I’m Ken” was sung verbatim twice.
In a comedy, parodies can be amusing, but using iconic scenes hold up by well known music and no dialogue feels lazy. Let just use that music, redo the visual, and call it humor. Contrast it with the mattrix parody, where it work beginning to end, because of the illusion of choice joke ADDED to the scene.
The revelation of how the mom plays with Barbie is repeated twice, which is entirely unnecessary. When the mom admits she was the one playing with Barbie, there’s no need to show that scene again.
Ruth. Without knowing anything about Mattel, I knew Ruth was the creator, as soon as she is introduced (power of visual explanation of cinema). Her scene was boring and unnecessary , but I get it as a hommage. The coming back at the end, to explain who she is, with no point was totally lame. I suspect it is the real Ruth. The only explanation, is that she wanted to be in a movie. And relinquished the rights of Barbie, at the condition she could play in it. (I would be happy to be wrong, but then her overall presence make even less sense)
The Message:
Having a character explicitly tell the message of the movie is bad. Anything that requires explicit spelling out in a work of fiction does not belong in a work of fiction.
The scene with Ken doubting the 'patriarchy" of a dude and the dude reply that he 'is better at hidding it" was fun. Because it didn’t explicitly explain how pervasive patriarchy is; it showed it instead.
However, the five-minute scene of the female human defending women seemed somewhat misogynistic. It suggest that women can’t comprehend the unfair world they inhabit until someone explains it to them. It could have being fun, if a white middle aged male did that though.
In contrast, consider Wakanda ( which this film emulates): at no point does someone speak for five minutes to explicitly inform the audience about the mistreatment of black people in the real world. The closest is when the antagonist uses it as a justification for his actions. It works then, because he is the bad guy, and his good message make him more believable. In Barbie, the scene makes the female human seem less believable and patronizes the audience by telling them what to think.
Allan:
I loved Allan. Allan is the redeeming character. He represents what the movie could have been. It’s clear that he doesn’t fit in BarbieLand, and we don’t need an explicit explanation for this. His fight against Kens is awesome, and we don’t need to know his background or motivations. He just doesn’t fit. That resonate with the audience who feel the same. He is the gay character, without pointing it out, or trying to relay a message. Allan is the perfect illustration of the power of cinema.
In contrast, the character of Weird Barbie feels forced in her behavior. (the split to remind us of the backstory, is pretty lame). I get that we need that magical figure. But the backstory is unecessary. Every girl and boy would have understood who she is/come from by the name alone.
I suspect it could have been a good movie, but the need to explain everything, from the jokes to the repeated story elements to the verbatim message conveyed by the mom, significantly diluted the movie’s quality. It came across as lazy and undermined some creative aspects. The “I’m Kenough” T-shirt at the end was a highlight.
What are your thoughts on the movie?
Ryan’s performance was worth the price of admission alone. I reccomend the film on that.
From a story POV, as seen by me, I saw Barbieland as a deliberate mirror to the real world, but the gender roles are flipped, everything then stems from that perspective. I never owned a Barbie so my perspective is biased to seeing the world as a metaphor, maybe it just is that way.
For starters, I think Ken is the protagonist of this film, as he is the one that goes through the journey of character growth. Where Barbie and the Barbie’s are pushing to go back to the status quo, ken and the kens are pushing to go forward (misguided as they may be). I joked when I got home that Barbie is the antagonist of her own movie. If you see Ken as the protagonist, his character growth is facing gender equality in himself and the world he finds himself in, Barbie is the narrative enemy to that. The otherway doesn’t exist however, Babrie’s existential character growth of who she is in the world is never hindered by anyone narratively except herself.
For social commentary, just as the world’s are a mirror I saw the social causes too as a mirror. The message is not good. Ken is shallow and wants change for petty reasons, both criticisms leveled at feminism. The solution the film presents to gender inequality is, “don’t push change might happen over time”, the ken’s might even get a judge one day. There is a joke that the right always critises social messages for going too far, and the left will always say it doesn’t go far enough… So I don’t say Barbie celebrates conservatives for being a limiting factor on social change, but the film does celebrate conservatives for limiting social change… This relies on me seeing Ken’s cause as the alagory to feminism, being that I saw the world as a mirror, it was natural to me.
I didn’t see the point in the CEO’s except to present corporate executives in a more sympathetic light. Allen was wasted potential, he seemed meta aware that could have been fun to explore, he was funny though.
I should say, I was willing to meet Barbie wherever it wanted to go. If it wanted to be a fun romp of “the Barbiemobile is broken, hijinks ensue in fixing it” I would have turned my brain off and went for the ride. If the film wanted to purely examine Barbie’s place in the world, but with jokes, I would have met it there and viewed it through that lens instead. The film instead has the real world social commentary of “patriarchy bad” but with jokes, so viewed it through that lens. Jokes where ok, the message was meh, Ryan was phenomenal, go see it
Totally agree on Ryan Gosling’s performance although I saw both Ken and Barbie as the protagonists when I watched it. Where they both acted as mirrors of each other until the end when they meet in the middle.
Almost like a Man (B+K) vs Self (B+K) conflict as opposed to a Man (B) vs Man (K) style conflict.