Barbie Review Thread

Zardnaar

Legend
So just seen Barbie in the theatre using my time travel skills AKA living in New Zealand.

First summer movie I've seen but it's winter here and I live in the deep south.

Probably not in the target demographic for this movie. I self identify as a post Colonial mongrel southern man who is almost 45 years old. Southern men eat gravel for breakfast, lick granite for dinner and drink glacier melt water. Only the glacier melt water part may be true.

We respect the three basic food groups (keg, can, bottle) and mock the UK, USA and the French at every available opportunity. Willing to settle for an Aussie as well.

So the movie is technically a comedy but it's a social satire with various other elements here and there. It has a lot more nuance than your typical Hollywood blockbuster and leans more towards making you think vs overly preachy and making your teeth itch.

It's not really a kids movie as such. What you take away from it might vary but there is kinda of an underlying theme running trough the movie. It kinda mocks everyone eg corporations, modern Hollywood, Mattel, consumerism etc.

Minor nitpick bit on the nose here and there depending on your knowledge of events in America but it's more of a tap on the nose with velvet gloves well executed and cleverly done vs badly written boxing glove to the face. It's not to American that it will make your teeth itch either.

Overall brilliant movie best recent release since John Wick 4 or last year's Bullet Train imho. Bonus points for distinct lack of Spandex and a formulaic brain dead plot chat gpt could spit out.

Well I'm off to shoot something small and fury and eat it raw (mocha and muffin tbh sssshhh don't tell).

9/10 on the Southern Man's beer o'clock chart better than some ice and gravel to the face. No French jokes don't want to cause a riot and have my house burnt down.
 

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FitzTheRuke

Legend
Sounds good. I'll probably wait to stream it, but I'll definitely give it a shot. I'm a Canadian like our man Ryan Ken, so we gotta support the poor fellow.
 


I just saw it. I'm also not the target demo, which I think makes the difference of whether this is a good movie that gets a bit too ham-fisted at times or a great movie. In any case it is a work of transformatively creative crass commercialism on par with the Lego movie, which is a hell of a thing to pull off on any level.

Doing satire approved by and paid for by the target is always weird. In this case they created a version of Mattel so surreal that I guess Mattel couldn't make enough sense out of it to give notes. I will be much better inclined towards the proposed Mattel Cinematic Universe (MCU?) if they work this version of the company into all the movies.

The movie plays so fast and loose with reality that it is unclear how its version of the real world works, and yet, as a school teacher, the place where my suspension of disbelief was broken was where a couple of random and oblivious adults could just wander into an American public middle school in a major urban area in the 2020s and not be questioned.
 

Zardnaar

Legend
I just saw it. I'm also not the target demo, which I think makes the difference of whether this is a good movie that gets a bit too ham-fisted at times or a great movie. In any case it is a work of transformatively creative crass commercialism on par with the Lego movie, which is a hell of a thing to pull off on any level.

Doing satire approved by and paid for by the target is always weird. In this case they created a version of Mattel so surreal that I guess Mattel couldn't make enough sense out of it to give notes. I will be much better inclined towards the proposed Mattel Cinematic Universe (MCU?) if they work this version of the company into all the movies.

The movie plays so fast and loose with reality that it is unclear how its version of the real world works, and yet, as a school teacher, the place where my suspension of disbelief was broken was where a couple of random and oblivious adults could just wander into an American public middle school in a major urban area in the 2020s and not be questioned.

Here you could wander into a school but it would look odd if you didn't head to the office.
 
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Here you coukd wander into a school but it woukd look odd if you didn't head to the office.
Very few American schools still have the sort of easy accessibility to parts other than the office, that their respective walking right into the cafeteria and library involved. It's been a direction our schools have been heading since the Columbine Massacre, but naturally it took a long time for our underfunded schools to come up with solutions to architecture often not at all designed to limit access. In any case lunches always have staff monitors and a random adult (not remotely dressed like someone who might be a staff member) wandering into the cafeteria would get escorted from the building real quick.

Not a problem with the movie by any means, nor anything remotely important, it's just that it's a smart enough movie that that's the resolution that I was expecting (and the one that probably would have played into the overall theme of idealized Barbie world expectations clashing with real world) only to discover... nope the writers haven't set foot in a public school for 20+ years. Oh well...
 

Zardnaar

Legend
Very few American schools still have the sort of easy accessibility to parts other than the office, that their respective walking right into the cafeteria and library involved. It's been a direction our schools have been heading since the Columbine Massacre, but naturally it took a long time for our underfunded schools to come up with solutions to architecture often not at all designed to limit access. In any case lunches always have staff monitors and a random adult (not remotely dressed like someone who might be a staff member) wandering into the cafeteria would get escorted from the building real quick.

Not a problem with the movie by any means, nor anything remotely important, it's just that it's a smart enough movie that that's the resolution that I was expecting (and the one that probably would have played into the overall theme of idealized Barbie world expectations clashing with real world) only to discover... nope the writers haven't set foot in a public school for 20+ years. Oh well...

We went looking for missing cat at a school Monday. It was night time but gate was open.

But school here usually is top 5 reason for American expats here.

Often the double as a playground and swimming pool as well for the kids.
 

Tonguez

A suffusion of yellow
Im 50 yr old married man who does love musicals, theatre and farce and I really enjoyed the Barbie Movie. The approach was great for a story of this nature and created a dynamic that was both bubblegum bright and clever adult satire. The various eastereggs references and pop culture moments were used well and I think the songs fit well with the narrative. I hadnt realised Helen Mirren was in it too but I particularly liked her narration and especially the fourth wall breaking that allowed.

Also I think the story while very much highlighting the pro-girl focus of Barbie was fair to its male audience, eventually giving Barbie and Ken some reconciliation and giving all Kens a chance to reflect on their identity and self worth too.

Now I had not heard of Sugar Daddy Ken before but I do have to give a hi-five to whomever It was at Mattel Who approved that one
 
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