The live action "Barbie" movie proved to be an amusing mess that works best when delving into the Barbie lore. Opening with a bizarre wink at '"2001 A Space Odyssey " with Barbie as the obelisk, you are taken to a meta-fantasy world that serves as a hyper-pink alternate universe that looks like a Katy Perry video. Since my daughter certainly went through a Barbie phase, I went into this movie with more knowledge of the Barbie world than most straight men without sisters or daughters. She is without question an iconic character and this movie if nothing else acknowledges that. Story wise it barrows the nuts and bolts of it's plot from "Toy Story" . "Pinocchio" , "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" and countless other Hollywood tropes playing off the life of toys or fantasy figures and their understanding of the real world. After consulting with the "weird Barbie" Margot's "Stereotypical" typical Barbie must make the journey to the real world when life in idealized Dreamhouse World takes a turn when Barbie gets flat feet. Thus Barbie must go on a quest to the real world.
I appreciate that Los Angeles is where the veil between the Barbie World and the real one is the thinnest, and only a rollerblade ride away. The entire Mattel as the nefarious overlords starting off working for me then some where amid the chase scene lost it's momentum. There were also lost opportunities with the Mattel connection, they could have had cameos to toy properties like the Cabbage Patch Kids or Masters of the Universe. John Cena would have been better used as He-Man to give Ken body issues, than a mer-man .If Barbie Land exists then the American Girl dolls and Cabbage Patch Kids must fit into that mythos some how. But instead we did get a pretty dead on look at what the playsets might be when brought to life, as well as a glimpse at the marketing world of her interchangeable outfits. However somewhere between magic costume changes, the writers wanted to get to the moral of their story, and that is when they got lost in the jokes of the world they created here.
They were wise to not go all in on Capitalism since Warner Bros a major cog in that machine made this movie that had been raking in hundreds of millions of dollars. Barbie's creator was a business woman who is rooted in it. Perhaps the Barbie and the body image issues she has created might have had more impact if there had not been an obese Barbie that never existed in Barbie lore, though they could have used the Fashionista lines' "curvy" body for the same purpose. Even more effective might have been calling out Mattel for their "I am Barbie" diversity line, which uses "diversity" as a marketing tool to sell more toys. Mattel will only make fun of itself to a certain extent.
You can't really call this a children's movie or accuse this of being nothing but a long Barbie commercial, thanks to "Ladybird" director Greta Gerwig going all in on this. I would not be surprised if the bulk of " Warner Bros" marketing budget went to pay Ben Shapiro for his press buzz regarding the film Perhaps to provide the movie some press armor from being cancelled by purposing in 2023 that how Barbie became a real woman was by going to the gynecologist
The movie's most important lesson came by way of a quote from Weird Barbie, who says " You are either brainwashed of you are ugly and weird."
Despite a lack of the Down Syndrome Barbie in all this, I found myself laughing out loud in several places, and I am normally not a fan of comedies. It never dragged even when the film lost direction midway in. Determined to capture Barbie's world is where the film shines, from the restraints of the Barbie box to the pooping Barbie dog, they might not have gotten it perfect , but they were invested enough in the character to make this work more often than not.
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