I wanted to like it. But I just didn't. The story wasn't very compelling to me because it seemed as if the entire point of much of the movie was to provide learning moments for viewers with some slapstick comedy and quick-delivery comedy. The story itself should nearly always be more important.

All of the goofiness largely would have been excused to me if the comedic moments were really funny. And the way this film was hyped made me think it was going to be super funny. But I rarely laughed. And that's even more of a shame given the talent assembled for the cast. There also weren't many surprising reveals to the audience when maybe there could have been if things were presented differently.

I also found it annoying to see Will Farrell play a similar part to what he played in the Lego Movie. Sure he's a CEO rather than a dad. But he was filling the same evil disciplinarian adult role for a movie about a kid's toy. It just felt lazy to not cast someone else for that part, and just made me wish the movie was able to provide the humor and intrigue that the first Lego movie provided to its audience.

I'd rather this film felt like a comedy or dramatic experience which has some relevant takes on feminism and culture than thinly veiled sermon with occasional jokes that land amongst a ton that didn't land.

I also felt like the movie had way too many characters and ideas thrown together. There was Barbie, Ken, many other Barbies, many other Kens, the crazy Barbie, the CEOs, the mother, the teen, the narrator and more. And it's not just that they had all of these characters. They also tried to have some learning moments delivered-by or delivered-to a majority of these characters. I felt like they would have been better off trying to deliver all these lessons over 3-5 movies rather than 1. And obviously you don't want it ever to seem like the lessons are being delivered but experiences through the story and the consequences of the actions and stakes created by the characters' decisions. Instead there didn't seem like any stakes because the Barbies didn't seem to fit in the real world and the real people didn't fit in the Barbie world.

Honestly my favorite part of the movie was a lot of the Easter egg stuff about odd Barbie products over the years. And Easter eggs shouldn't be the best part of any movie. They should be a bonus to the overall experience of the story.