Barbie (Margot Robbie) lives in Barbieland. Ken (Ryan Gosling) is always desperate for her attention. All the Ken and Barbie dolls live in a happy matriarchy unaware of the real world. Out of the blue, Barbie starts pondering death and her existence. Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon) tells her that she has opened a portal to the real world and must fix whatever is her real world problem before she can return to her perfect self. She and stowaway Ken find the real world completely different than their expectations. Mattel CEO (Will Ferrell) insists on putting her back in the box. Mattel secretary Gloria (America Ferrera) had caused the problem by drawing new forms of Barbie.

First, I love the premise and I love the 2001 opening. The start is a lot funnier than I expected. Margot Robbie is great and Ryan Gosling is hilarious. It's a great start in Barbieland. The first moments in LA is a little too much. Quite frankly, Barbie and Ken would not stand out at Venice beach. The male leering is good enough. They don't need to do the stereotype abusive guys. The real world should be realistic. Barbie and Ken would be better fishes out of the water in a recognizable regular world. The more average the real world is, the better it is for the characters to showcase their outrageousness.

Mattel is fun and I like the ridiculous silliness. Will Ferrell is a good way to show their outrageous quality. The movie has a lot of social commentary and that aspect does threaten to overwhelm it. The last act has some wonky moments as the movie tries to wrap its arms around the heavier social discussions. I would like to keep that more contained and concentrate on the mother daughter relationships. It's Gloria and Sasha, but it's also Ruth and Barbara. That's a perfect way to end the movie. I do like the montage idea, but I didn't realize what it was doing initially. It would have been fine to do that for the closing credits. All in all, this is a funny engaging movie and it's able to deal with some of the tougher social material.