Movie Review: Barbie

 

Michael's Movie Grade: D-

An incredibly overrated movie. 

I am a huge fan of director Greta Gerwig's previous films, yet I am sad to say that everything that made those movies so great is completely absent here. At times it is almost hard to believe that this is by the same filmmaker. This film is to put it bluntly a big mess. Probably the worst fault of this film is the characters themselves.  Every character is either incredibly bland, unlikable or both. Because of this it is hard to care about a single character here and therefore I found it hard to have any emotional connection to anything that happened. This also makes how much of a mess the storyline is all the more obvious. Even a fantasy film needs to have some source of internal logic, if it wants us to take anything seriously. The problem is that much of the story's very premise doesn't make sense within the context of the film. For instance, what exactly is Barbie Land and how does it function with the real world? The more you think about it, the less sense it makes. When the very foundation of the story doesn't work, the whole thing simply falls apart and that is what happens here. This lack of logic could work if there was nothing but comedy in this film, but instead there are times where it wants us to take it somewhat seriously (especially during the last act) and I simply found it impossible to do so. Not only this but there are quite a few subplots that add little to nothing to the film The last act is when this movie decides it wants to be something much more than a simple comedy. It wants to be a film that has something to say. Unfortunately, its way of going about this is all wrong. Instead of having the message come out of the characters and story, the message seems to be the only thing driving the characters in stories. This often results in making the characters seem like they only exist for the sake of the message the film is conveying. This film also does one of the worst things a message movie can do. This is to delve into speeches that explain the moral of the story in the most obvious way possible. This should not be something an audience should be told by a movie but something that should infer by watching it. While the feminist message is admirable and a lot of what it says is completely true, it is also very basic. Because of this you might agree with what you hear while watching the film, but you will have little food for thought as you leave the theater. This is a case of good intentions being overcome by bad execution. I have not talked much about the comedy yet despite this film being a comedy. The truth is most of the comedy falls completely flat. There were maybe two jokes that got a laugh out of me, but all of the rest didn't even make me smile. Much of this comedy feels like it is simply trying much too hard. Unfortunately it tries so hard to be funny that it winds up being painfully unfunny. 

I do admit I like the design of Barbie Land, which does a really good job of making the world of the toys seem to come to life. Also while I didn't like the characters, I do admit that the cast is very good in their roles. 

Despite all the hype around this film, it is simply put a bad movie.