Me, before watching Barbie (2023): oh this will be so much fun and I will enjoy every single moment!

Me, after watching Barbie (2023): *in tears* oh this was so much fun and I enjoyed every single moment!

saw the barbie movie! it was incredibly fun and camp before anything else and that was really all i was looking for so it was a good experience!

i appreciated the feminist messaging however i felt like the monologue the mom gave especially was inserted a little awkwardly among other things. most of the comments in the movie felt like provocative statements without actually offering the movie's own take on it which i don't think contributes much to the conversation in 2023. the Big Monologue especially was used specifically to be provocative enough to snap the barbies out of brainwashing in-story so i feel like that's a waste. at least they did something more with the idea of that later.

i really like what they did with ken and im glad will ferrel wasn't the villain in this. ken's arc kind of tied in with barbie's arc of discovering for herself which i guess plays into one of the themes of the movie that ties into the big monologue? but anyway i noticed ken's simp thing during the marketing and thought that if the movie was about barbie breaking out of her archetype then there was a lot of potential for ken to develop outside his relationship with barbie and im glad they acknowledged that!

there were some other throwaways lines and concepts that were never expanded on and ultimately that makes the feminism of the movie feel a little shallow. it doesnt try to break any new ground, so it feels very safe and corporate. the corporations summarizing the past 20 years of feminism discourse into one general take that you'll probably agree with if you're not ben shapiro.

but for a corporate cash grab it had a great atmosphere, fun characters, and banging music numbers so even if i wouldn't call it "peak cinema" like all the memes do it's still very fun! and a nice tribute to barbie and ruth handler herself. its only been like 12 hours since i watched the movie though so i may change my mind on this as time goes on

anyway my Super Hot Take about this movie is: this would have worked 100x better as a musical. the great musical numbers and dance sequences aside, there are several sections of the movie where it feels like the characters are just saying the themes the writers came up with instead of natural dialogue. like the mom's monologue i already talked about. it feels awkward in dialogue but it would be REALLY good as a solo number! also the chase scene in the mattel building is just asking to be turned into a dance sequence. stuff like barbie and ruth's conversation at the end would be even more emotional with some vocals too i think. idk maybe i just want a barbie musical. mattel take notes.

also my friend @f1ddlyb1ts was right this really is just like book 3 of infinity train. at least ken doesn't get his face melted off.