Another movie based on a famous toy, now based on Barbie dolls from the toy company Mattel; I do not love Barbie toys, but I do not hate them either. The movie Barbie (2023) was surprisingly good with it being funny and having a good message; other than the interesting premise to the movie, there is great casting with Margot Robbie as Barbie and Ryan Gosling as Ken. Another draw to this movie for me other than the premise and the casting, was the design and the look of the movie looking like a Barbie playset with the look of Barbieland and the amount of pink and the use of life-sized plastic props used like in Barbie toy sets.

I could not think of anyone else to play the role of the main Barbie other than Margot Robbie, because she is great in the role with Barbie having an existential crisis about herself, and herself changing like her feet being flat on the ground instead of on tippy toes; she was funny and likable with her trying to find what human is playing with her doll in the real world. Ryan Gosling as Ken was funny to watch being obsessed with the beach, wanting Barbie and him to be more than friends, and discovering things men do in the real world and bringing this stuff to Barbieland; tagging along with Barbie on her journey to the real-world helping Barbie with her problem while also learning new things himself.

The rest of the cast of the movie are playing a bunch of diverse kinds of Barbies and Kens involving Weird Barbie played by Kate McKinnon, and there being one Allan played by Michael Cera who is also funny with the rest of the cast that involves how Barbieland works and how their characters interact off each other. The movie has a fictional version of the toy company Mattel with Will Ferrell as the Mattel CEO who is funny, but sometimes some of the scenes at Mattel in the movie were not that funny, even though the way they make fun of Mattel can be funny to watch. There is no real antagonist for this movie, unless you want to count Mattel in the movie, but they are not in the movie as much as they could be, so it focuses on Barbie's self-journey on her existence and how the world works.

The world of Barbieland does look amazing with the Barbies having dream houses that look like the toy sets with plastic props and sound effects that makes it look like the Barbies are doing things in their lives, and them occasionally moving around like they are being played with. Everything in Barbieland looks like life sized versions of the toys with water being plastic and the vehicles moving like toy cars, I especially like how Barbieland is connected to the real world as explained by Helen Mirren as the Narrator in the beginning of the movie. Plus, I like how they talk about how the Barbie doll in the real world affects the real Barbies in Barbieland, while also talking about the discontinued/cancelled Barbies and Kens in both worlds.

The movie Barbie (2023) was funny, weird, creative, emotionally investing at times, and entertaining/fun to watch; the acting from the whole cast is great, Barbieland looks great, the songs in the movie are catchy, and there is a good message in the movie going around involving Barbie thinking Barbies changed things in the real world with equal rights and stuff like that. An issue would be that it puts its message in your face too much at certain points, but by the second and third act the movie goes a different direction than what I was expecting, and I was laughing a lot. People who love the Barbie toys will like this movie, people who are in the middle with Barbie like me will like it, and the people who do not like the Barbie toys might get some enjoyment out of this film because the movie says both good and not good things about the toys making fun of them which makes this movie entertaining to watch.