Barbie review

BARBIE: 

YOU WILL WANT TO LIVE IN BARBIELAND AFTER SEEING GRETA GERWIG’S FILM BASED ON ICONIC DOLL! 

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: **** out of 4

WARNER BROS. PICTURES

Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling in Barbie

 

            Margot Robbie (The Wolf of Wall Street, DC Extended Universe, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) goes from Harley Quinn to real-life Barbie doll in Barbie, the new film from Greta Gerwig (Nights and Weekends, Lady Bird, Little Women (2019)) based on the Mattel toy line of the same name. I should make this clear, I did not grow up with Barbie nor was I the target demographic.

I was a boy who was into superheroes, video games, anime, etc. so I wasn’t exactly interested in Barbie dolls or any girl-targeted toys as a child, gender neutral franchises like The Powerpuff Girls and Kim Possible don’t count. Yeah, this was before Bronies and Equesticles were invented! 

Clearly, I’m the right person to talk about Barbie: The Movie which was hyped up like crazy thanks to an ingenious marketing campaign. From a teaser trailer inspired by the opening scene of 2001: A Space Odyssey that even opens the film up in the beginning to countless cross-promotions and advertisements, not to mention the internet-exploding trend of Barbenheimer where you do a double-feature of this and the new Christopher Nolan film, Oppenheimer (Which we’ll get to next time), you can tell people regardless of gender and interests were excited for it. 

I was intrigued when the film was first announced with Greta Gerwig as the director and that Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling (Drive, The Place Beyond the Pines, La La Land) were cast as Barbie and Ken. What followed was me getting more and more onboard for it with every trailer that came out and thought it could pretty much be the Barbieequivalent of The Lego Movie which sounded fun and could have a lot of potential in terms of social satire and satirizing the brand itself. 

After seeing it, I can’t believe I’m saying this but…I love the Hell out of this movie! This is a wildly funny, remarkably clever film that pays tribute to the brand while also acknowledging its more controversial aspects as well as providing thought-provoking social commentary. In the same year that gave us Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One and Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 3, the two best movies I’ve seen so far have been Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and this which is insane to say. 

The film follows Barbie (Robbie) living in the magical land known as Barbieland (A Barbie Girl living in a Barbie World if you will) enjoying her perfect, pink-filled life. She drives in her pink convertible, goes to the beach, parties all night with other Barbies, and of course hanging out with her boyfriend, Ken (Gosling), everything a Barbie could want. 

But when Barbie mysteriously starts having an existential crisis, she and Ken leave Barbieland and enter the real world to find out the truth. Along the way, they have run-ins with the CEO of Mattel (Will Ferrell-Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, Blades of Glory, Step Brothers), a Mattel employee named Gloria (America Ferrera-The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 1 and 2, Ugly Betty, How to Train Your Dragon trilogy) and her daughter Sasha (Ariana Greenblatt-Stuck in the Middle, In the Heights, 65) who get roped into helping Barbie on her quest, and a rising conflict that could result in the end of Barbieland as we know it. 

The film also stars Michael Cera (Arrested Development, Superbad, Juno) as Allan, Rhea Perlman (Canadian Bacon, Matilda, The Sessions) as Ruth, Helen Mirren (Excalibur, The Queen, RED 1 and 2) as the Narrator, Jamie Demetriou (Paddington 2, Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga, Cruella) as the CFO of Mattel, Connor Swindells (Emma (2020), Sex Education, SAS: Rogue Heroes) as Aaron Dinkins, Emerald Fennell (Albert Nobbs, Anna Karenina, The Danish Girl) as Midge, Kate McKinnon (Saturday Night Live, Ghostbusters (2016), The Spy Who Dumped Me) as Barbie, Issa Rae (Insecure, Little, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse) as Barbie, Hari Nef (Mapplethorpe, Assassination Nation, 1Up) as Barbie, Alexandra Shipp (Straight Outta Compton, X-Men franchise, Tick, Tick… Boom!) as Barbie, Emma Mackey (Sex Education, Eiffel, Death on the Nile) as Barbie, Sharon Rooney (Brief Encounters, Two Doors Down, Dumbo (2019)) as Barbie, Ana Cruz Kayne (Little Women (2019), Jerry & Marge Go Large, Painkiller) as Barbie, Dua Lipa as Barbie, Nicola Coughlan (Derry Girls, Bridgerton, Seize Them!) as Barbie, Ritu Arya (Doctors, Humans, Polite Society) as Barbie, Marisa Abela (Industry, COBRA, Back to Black) as Barbie, Kingsley Ben-Adir (Vera, Peaky Blinders, One Night in Miami…) as Ken, Simu Liu (Kim’s Confidence, Blood and Water, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings) as Ken, Scott Evans (Confessions of a Shopaholic, Grace and Frankie, Almost Love) as Ken, Ncuti Gatwa (Sex Education, Horrible Histories: The Movie – Rotten Romans, Doctor Who) as Ken, Rob Brydon (The Trip franchise, The Huntsman: Winter’s War, Early Man) as Sugar Daddy Ken, and John Cena (The Marine, Bumblebee, The Suicide Squad/Peacemaker) as Kenmaid. 

Overall, Barbie is a very well-crafted film that goes places you normally wouldn’t expect a Barbie film to go, and the result is something extremely fun for everyone and surprisingly thought-provoking. I was laughing constantly, and I also found myself getting invested in its themes of patriarchy which actually plays a huge part in the story. 

            I love it when Barbie and Ken first come to the real world and discover that it’s mostly run by men in contrast to the female dominated Barbieland which leads to Ken learning about patriarchy. I also thought the Kens in Barbieland pretty much being treated like women in the real world is a very clever allegory for sexism and leads to some great social commentary. 

            Margot Robbie is a perfect “Stereotypical” Barbie and not just because she already looks like a live-action Barbie. Robbie brings so much energy and charisma to her character whenever she’s onscreen and turns this doll who’s often ridiculed as a one-dimensional bimbo into a fully fleshed-out character with human emotions and story arcs she goes through, I’ve never cared for a Barbie doll before until this movie. 

            Ryan Gosling is also a standout as Ken who is an absolute riot in the film with Gosling delivering some of the best jokes in the movie and has great comedic timing. Like Robbie’s Barbie, Gosling also expands upon the Ken character past the dim-witted, good-looking hunk into honestly, a very interesting character over the course of the film. 

            The production design is stunning and definitely warrants the big screen to be fully immersed in Barbie’s world. From the overabundance of pink colors to the structural designs of the buildings and attention to detail, you can tell the people working on it not only did their research, but also enjoyed doing their research, this deserves a Best Production Design Oscar, just saying. 

            I had a great time with Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, on the surface it seems like it would have been what Mamma Mia! was for The Dark Knight (As the fluffy alternative). However, this manages to be much smarter and more entertaining than you would think and a worthy chick flick competitor for the new Christopher Nolan movie out the same weekend.