This movie is about the best movie you can make with the Barbie franchise. I still found it to be a relatively average movie. I suspect part of that may be that I'm not the originally intended audience, but it may also be that this movie wants to be a thought provoking and social commentary film while handcuffed to the Barbie IP.

The casting is fine, Margot Robbie does a good job as Stereotypical Barbie, Ryan Gosling is ok as Sterotypical Ken. Simu Liu is a fun addition as are Kate McKinnon and Michael Cera. I don't know, didn't feel like there were any knockout performances nor any terrible ones.

The writing is fine. Again, hands are somewhat tied because the whole movie is a pointed critique on Barbie and Mattel's spotted history as it relates to female empowerment but also capitalist consumerism. And then in the next scene they have some of the sickest product placement for a car in the Chevy Blazer EV. Still, it's a decently funny film with good self-awareness and a script that isn't afraid to take punches (rightfully so) at Mattel. So many punches in fact that I'm surprised Mattel OK'ed the script.

Even if I personally didn't get much out of it, I'm sure there's messaging in there that will resonate more to other audiences. I mean there has to be because some of the dialogue is very on the nose. I'm not sure if that's a product of bad writing, constrained runtime, or the very setting of the film, but the sweeping brainwashing and the subsequent deprogramming speech are not very fleshed out; they're pretty generic speeches and not particularly rousing. Normally not a critique I'd levy on a toy movie, but for a movie with a central and visible motif on empowering the every-woman, a tired mother just trying her best, I'd expect something a little more profound.

I did quite like the obscure lore that this movie brought to the spotlight. Seems to be a successful strategy pioneered by Disney's Marvel, built on by Sony's Spider-Verse, and now replicated by Mattel's Barbie. What a weird evolution. It's fun though, Alan is great, there's an entire graveyard of discontinued Barbie variants, I wish they had found a way to tie in the Mattel debacle with Computer Scientist Barbie.

At just under 2 hours, the movie does feel a little long. I think there are some minor pacing issues but I'm not sure where I would fix what.

Overall, it's an OK movie. Pretty much exactly the quality I'd expect out of a Barbie movie but executed in a manner I'd never have predicted. Social commentary that feels strange considering how good this movie has been for the company it criticizes.