Barbie Review
Margot Robbie is fantastic as Barbie, and the film features a winning turn from Ryan Gosling, but it is an overly crowded film that loses its message in a muddled third act that never lives up to its potential.
In Barbie, Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) is living the dream in Barbie-land, until existential dread causes her to break with her reality, even developing flat feet. Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon) reveals to her how she can get her old life back; by traveling to the real world, finding the girl that is playing with her, and fixing her problems. Barbie heads off, her overly loving boyfriend Ken (Ryan Gosling) in tow. But not everything is as she expected in the real world, and when she returns her precious Barbie-land is in tatters. She has to find her own feet, and define her own future, while saving Barbie-land and helping a young mother and her daughter.
Greta Gerwig’s Barbie swings for the fences avidly throughout the film. From the very off, with a 2001: A Space Odyssey homage, the movie cements itself as not just another kids movie. And for large parts, it is very successful. The film is funny, and very fun. Super colorful, and playing on the sheer ridiculousness of its incredibly meta concept, Barbie starts strong.
Ultimately, the eyes are too big for the stomach here, and this movie is overstuffed to the max. With a wide array of plot threads that never lead anywhere, a main quest that is quite rapidly thrown aside, only to be picked up in the very final scenes, and a finale that feels a touch cliche, the film loses its way around the halfway mark.
Margot Robbie is stunning as Barbie, and it is difficult to really see anyone else ever inhabiting this role. America Ferrera is also a lot of fun, and gets a lot of cool action, comedy and pathos to play with. Simu Liu makes an impression as a rival Ken to Gosling’s, and Michael Cera is very funny as Allen.
Ultimately, though, Gosling steals the show. He’s absolutely pitch perfect as Ken - whether he is overly loving at the start, full of patriarchal madness through the middle, or reformed by the end. Every second he is on screen is one of joy and fun; the only issue being that his presence is so missed when he isn’t involved.
At the end of the day, Barbie is a blast of light-hearted fun with a strong message and plenty of laughs. It may not be the perfect piece of pink puff that we had expected, but there’s enough here to make it a recommendation.
