Barbie (film)
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 "It is the best day ever. So was yesterday, and so is tomorrow, and every day from now until forever."
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Barbie is a 2023 American fantasy comedy film directed and co-written by Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach. After 42 computer-animated direct-to-video and streaming television films based on Mattel's Barbie fashion dolls, it is the first live-action Barbie film.
Plot
Stereotypical Barbie (Barbara Handler) enjoys a lovely daily life in the vibrant Barbie Land. She shows symptoms of being a human one day. She travels to the Real World to discover the cure and make herself perfect again.
Why It's a Barbie Girl, In a Barbie World
- Despite the absurdity of the concept, the movie isn't a big theatrical commercial to encourage viewers to buy Barbie dolls unlike The Emoji Movie and Playmobil: The Movie. It feels like a proper movie with Barbie in it.
- For Mattel's second movie based on the popular toy line of the same name, is a massive improvement over the infamous 2016 film Max Steel.
- The movie isn't just whimsical and light-hearted all the time, there are also messages of patriarchy and sexism that can appeal to adults as well.
- The sets look amazing and like a fairytale due to the saturated colors. It was so amazing that there was a worldwide shortage of pink paint.
- Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling have very good chemistry and performances as both Barbie and Ken.
- Very snazzy costumes, especially Barbie and Ken's cowboy costumes.
- Great acting, especially by Margot Robbie who also portrayed Harley Quinn in the DC Extended Universe and voiced Flopsy Rabbit in the live-action Peter Rabbit duology, Ryan Gosling, and Will Ferrell (who voiced the titular character in Megamind and Bob Oblong from The Oblongs). Helen Mirren also does a great job voicing the narrator.
- The ending gave a good message and was very heart-wrenching to watch. Barbie also decides to stay in the real world and gets a job. Now doesn't that sound familiar?
- Amazing soundtrack, the particular highlights being "Dance the Night" was done by Dua Lipa, and "I'm Just Ken" was great to listen to and has good lyrics. "Barbie World" by Ice Spice and Nicki Minaj (ft. Aqua) is also great as well.
- Many heartwarming moments and memorable quotes.
- "My job, it's just beach."
- "Humans only have one ending. Ideas live forever."
- "Do you guys ever think about dying?"
- Gloria's monologue was also heart-wrenching, to the point where it even made the men cry on set.[1]
- Many hilarious moments like Barbie awkwardly pausing her dance party, Barbie drinking expired milk, the random dance battle with Ken, Barbie, and Ken stealing clothes they are wearing, the Mattel CEO and his workers riding on roller blades in an attempt to get to Barbie Land, and President Barbie openly cursing with her mouth censored by the Mattel logo.
- All of the characters in Barbie Land are pretty likable.
- Entertaining side characters, such as the fictionalized version of the late Ruth Handler and the Mattel CEO, based on the real-life Chairman and CEO Ynon Kreiz.
- Overall, the movie proved to the world that a Barbie movie can be great, winning a million dollars, even to the point of shockingly surpassing The Super Mario Bros. Movie!
Qualities That Aren't Kenough
- Despite some of the bigger moments of the film happening during this portion (Gloria's monologue, "I'm Just Ken"), some of the film's magic is lost during the "Kendom" portion.
- While part of it is likely due to Beach Ken being a "himbo" with no real idea of how things work, the attempt to warn about the dangers of patriarchy and sexism has some issues, with it being a combination of negative stereotypes about males and the way feminism is written when the story treats it as a strawman.
- The fact that they made Ken a surprise villain in this alliteration of Barbie feels like a very unusual choice. Thankfully he learns his lesson at the end. But that doesn't stop him from becoming unlikable. This is also the second incarnation of Ken to be villainous, with the first one being Ken from Pixar's Toy Story 3.
- As mentioned in the film, Stereotypical Barbie, outside of taking part in the plan to get the Kens to fight each other, doesn't do much in this part of the film, with the ones moving things being Beach Ken, Gloria, and Weird Barbie.
- Some parts of humor are inappropriate for a Barbie movie, which also led to the film being banned in Vietnam.
- Sasha can be quite unlikable at times, particularly in the scene where she and her friends make fun of Barbie and hurt her feelings, which makes her cry.
Reception
Barbie attained critical acclaim. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 88% of 497 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.9/10. The website's consensus reads: "Barbie is a visually dazzling comedy whose meta humor is smartly complemented by subversive storytelling." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 80 out of 100, based on 67 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale, while those polled by PostTrak gave it an 89% overall positive score, with 79% saying they would recommend the film.
Controversy
Despite getting positive reviews, many Christians and Conservatives hated it and were burning Barbie dolls, asking people to boycott the film for being "anti-men" and full of "transgender and homosexuality". Their tactics backfired as the movie was a smash hit. In reality, the movie is far from "misandrist garbage" as there is no evidence the movie is pushing such agendas.[2]
It has also gotten so bad to the point where Ben Shapiro has made three videos of the Barbie movie as of now, including a long-hour rant. [3]
Trivia
- The movie spawned lots of memes on the internet such as "Tickets to Barbie, please", Barbie movie poster parodies, and Barbenheimer due to its same-day release as Oppenheimer.
- The film was banned in Kuwait and other Islamic countries due to its content that "promotes homosexuality and other Western deviances"; in Vietnam, it was banned because of maps featuring the "nine-dash line."
- However, its ban on Lebanon was reverted after they found no reason to ban it, giving it a release in August.