I was expecting a little more given the hype and was a little disappointed by a few aspects of the film. Firstly I'll say that Margot as Barbie and Ryan as Ken were great individually. A large part of why this movie was good enough is because of what they brought to the characters and the story on screen. I found watching Ken discovering "patriarchy" to be hilarious. However, one of the first critiques I have is that it felt like the movie didn't spend enough time in Barbieland. The serious shift felt a little too sudden when it could have benefitted from fleshing out the "perfect" life and the character dynamics of the barbies and Kens with more substance. Because I felt that was missing, the emotions Barbie was experiencing in the real world fell flat to me, which brings me to my second point.

The movie's use of heavily weighted political words by the barbies and kens water down the overall message this film is trying to convey. I think being a woman in the real world is a lot more complicated than going on a beach and getting harassed. Or seeing a bunch of men working and socialising in corporate. I understand the way the movie addresses this is meant to be with a comical and somewhat obvious tone, and it was. However, it could have benefitted from also adding a bit more of a layered experience to these issues which would consequently add more dimensions to when these politically weighted words were used. It just felt, in my personal opinion, to be thrown around for the convenience of making a point amongst all the silliness but with no real material message.

It was an enjoyable film in its own merits. However, I was disappointed in the development of the storyline and the characters so I give Barbie a 7/10. I think Greta is talented and I preferred her previous work like Lady Bird. This was a little too mainstream without much substance, thus, Barbie's empowering message fell flat to me.