Barbie (2023)

My quick rating - 6.6/10. Time to finally see what all the hype was about. Surely Barbie couldn't possibly be as bad as some people made it out to be. After all, it stars Margot Robbie. Right?

Then the movie immediately landed one of its best jokes.

"Note to the filmmakers: Margot Robbie is the wrong person to cast if you want to make this point."

That line got a genuine laugh out of me. Right from the start, Barbie shows it's fully aware of itself, and that self-awareness ends up being my favorite part.

Life in Barbieland is exactly what you'd expect. Bright pink perfection, dream houses without walls, endless dance parties, and a population convinced every single day is the best day ever. Everything runs with the kind of efficiency that would make most governments jealous. Barbie is living her ideal life, while Ken is...also there. Sort of. His entire personality revolves around getting Barbie's attention, which sounds like a simple joke at first but becomes surprisingly important as the story unfolds.

Margot Robbie feels like she was built in a Mattel factory specifically for this role. She manages to portray the confidence and allure of Barbie along with her grandiose nature without taking away from her accessibility. While Robbie shines in the film, Ryan Gosling comes close to stealing the whole show. His version of Ken is gloriously ridiculous from beginning to end. Every scene feels like Gosling woke up and chose maximum chaos, and the film is better for it.

What surprised me most was how well crafted the screenplay was. Making a movie about the doll line seems like it would go something along the lines of someone demanding an emergency exit point. Yet, Barbie creates an interesting story by exploring themes of identity, purpose, and finding your place when you don’t fit the assigned role anymore. This is way more profound than I thought for a film set in the universe created within a pink dreamland.

The real-world portions are where the film really finds another gear. Watching Barbie and Ken interact with reality creates some genuinely funny moments while allowing the story's themes to hit a little harder. The inclusion of Mattel itself was a brilliant choice, and Will Ferrell feels right at home as the company's eccentric CEO. The fact that the film openly turns Mattel into part of the joke somehow makes the whole thing even funnier.

My only real hurdle was the musical side of things. The songs are well-produced, visually impressive, and clearly beloved by audiences, but musicals have never been my thing. Every time the story got rolling, another musical number would arrive and briefly remind me that I am not the target audience for spontaneous singing. That's entirely a personal preference issue, though, because the sequences themselves are executed extremely well.

In the end, Barbie turns out to be a whole lot more fun than I thought it would be. Not only is it hilarious, but it looks great, and the acting by Robbie and Gosling works so well. The musical numbers did get on my nerves, but the creativity and humor more than made up for it. What could have been a simple toy adaptation ended up becoming one of the most enjoyable surprises of the year.

A tad over the normal theater-at-home cost on these streamers including Amazon.

#comedy #jackmeatsflix #IMDB #Plex