Barbie (PG-13)
Barbie Wiki; Council of Geeks; IMDb; official website; Rotten Tomatoes; TV Tropes; Warner Bros.; Wikipedia
streaming sites: Amazon; Google Play; Max; Movies Anywhere; Vudu; YouTube

Caution: spoilers.

Wow. Like, what can I tell you about this movie? It came out in July 2023 (I saw it in February 2024). Before it came out I saw a teaser trailer, which was a spoof of 2001: A Space Odyssey, so that was fun. And the opening scene of the actual movie is an extended version of what we saw in the trailer. I also need to mention that one day in June 2023, a few weeks or so before the movie opened, I posted on Facebook this silly idea I had about a "Barbie" and "Oppenheimer" crossover, just because they would be opening on the same day. Not long after that, I started seeing all sorts of mashups of the two movies, memes and whatnot, and the phenomenon was referred to as "Barbenheimer". So I felt pretty good about having anticipated that without ever expecting any such thing to happen. And I want to say there were several categories into which I could have placed my review, like "fantasy", or "comedy", or possibly "weird", or even in a strange way "coming of age" might fit. I flirted with the idea of calling it an "art film". But finally I decided to go with "serio-comedy", because despite being mostly a comedy, I would say it also dealt with some serious issues. But then I decided to put it under "quirky", instead. Hopefully that's the best fit for the movie. And predictably, some conservative people had a meltdown about the movie, which prompted me (well before I actually saw the movie myself) to make this meme. (I wouldn't be surprised if other people made similar, even almost identical memes.)

Anyway, the movie is sporadically narrated by Helen Mirren. And like I said, it starts with a spoof of "2001", set at the dawn of time, since which time little girls have played with baby dolls. Then everything changed when Barbie was introduced, and we flash forward to the present day. According to the Narrator, the residents of Barbie Land were under the impression that Barbie dolls had changed everything, empowering women and ending sexism in the real world. Oh, yeah, Barbie Land is a place where a bunch of different Barbies and Kens (played by different actresses and actors) live, for reals. And some other dolls from the same toy franchise, such as the one and only Allan (Michael Cera). They're all like real people, but are also aware that they are the embodiment of toys that exist in the real world. Which I think is a pretty neat concept. Not just that Barbie Land exists as a real(ish) place, but that the people there know about the real world, at least in theory. There's one Barbie, known as "Stereotypical Barbie" (Margot Robbie), who dates one of the Kens (Ryan Gosling), though she doesn't actually seem very interested in him. He's in love with her, but to her, he's just sort of there, almost like an afterthought. In fact, none of the Kens do much of anything with their lives, while all the Barbies have amazing careers, such as President Barbie (Issa Rae). (Presumably that's meant to represent the attitudes of the kids playing with them in the real world. And presumably most if not all of those kids are assumed to be girls.) So it's very much a matriarchal society.

Then one day, Barbie begins having thoughts of mortality, and other real world issues begin to manifest. So she goes to see Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon), hoping she can "fix" her. Instead, she tells Barbie she'll have to go to the real world and find the girl who plays with her. Ken goes with Barbie to the real world, where he learns about the patriarchy, and loves the idea of men like himself actually being respected. So he takes that concept back to Barbie Land. Meanwhile, Mattel's CEO (Will Ferrell) is alerted to the fact that Barbie has been wandering around town. Apparently there was a similar incident years ago, which caused some problems, so he and the rest of the company's executives want to find her and box her up before she can do any harm to... well, I guess to both the real world and Barbie Land. Barbie eventually finds the girl she thought was playing with her, Sasha (Ariana Greenblatt), but she and her friends inform Barbie that her very existence is problematic, and set the feminist movement back by decades, and they haven't played with her in years. However, it turns out that Sasha's mother, Gloria (America Ferrera), was the one who was playing with her, and it was her anxiety that had seeped into Barbie.

Um, I'm probably forgetting things and getting plot points out of order. At one point, Barbie is taken to Mattel's headquarters, but then realizes they can't actually help her, so she runs away and is chased by the executives. She then meets a woman named Ruth (Rhea Perlman), who offers some sage words of advice. (She'll also show up later in the movie, but I don't want to spoil any details about that.) Anyway, Barbie returns to Barbie Land with Gloria and Sasha, where they find that the Kens have taken over and the Barbies have become brainwashed, subservient girlfriends to them. (This somehow affects sales of toys in the real world.) So Barbie and her human friends, with some help from Weird Barbie and Allan, have to deprogram the other Barbies and take their world back. But in the process, Barbie realizes she's taken Ken for granted, and encourages him to figure out who he is without her. In fact, she encourages all the Kens to do the same.

Well, I feel like I've said too much, but I am leaving out one important plot development at the very end of the movie. And I suppose various details from throughout the movie. So... what are my impressions? Overall, I kinda loved it. Maybe not as much as some other movies that it reminded me of, but still, I thought it was pretty damn good. The depiction of the patriarchy in the real world was maybe a bit exaggerated for comic effect, but only a bit. Because of course in reality it is pretty bad. And... I more or less liked the concept of both the real world influencing events in Barbie Land, and vice versa. I hope both realities can someday achieve true equality between the sexes (though I feel like that could more easily happen in Barbie's reality than in ours). I did think there were some things that didn't quite make sense, even within the framework of the movie's fantastical concepts. But that didn't bother me too much. Mostly I just liked the message of the movie, while finding the whole thing very fun and amusing. And I'm glad it did so well financially.

Note: after I wrote this review, I watched Council of Geeks' take on the movie, and they made some criticisms I don't disagree with. Basically, they said that seemingly subversive elements of the film, like corporations and their products being criticized, was allowed by the corporations (Warner Bros. and Mattel) in the hopes of garnering goodwill without actually changing any of the problems the movie hangs a lampshade on. And that in itself is a problem, I agree with that. Still doesn't dampen my appreciation of the movie, though.