Getting beached off by Ryan Gosling.

Barbie is a hell of a movie. Directed by Greta Gerwig, the film came out in 2023 and had some really weird controversies like the map of the world sparking debate over territory disputes in the South China Sea. The movie was banned in some Muslim countries for showing LGBT themes and “promoting homosexuality”, and in the west it got constantly crapped on by internet personalities who make their income off the anger of stupid, insecure virgins. He’s just Ben.

The film stars Margot Robbie as Barbie, Kate McKinnon as Barbie, Issa Rae as Barbie, Alexandra Shipp as Barbie, Emma Mackey as Barbie, Hari Nef as Barbie, Sharon Rooney as Barbie, Ana Kayne as Barbie, Rifu Arya as Barbie, Dua Lipa as Barbie, Nicola Coughlan as Barbie, Mette Narrative as Barbie, Marisa Abela as Barbie, and Lucy Boynton as Barbie. Also featured is Ryan Gosling as Ken, Simu Liu as Ken, Kingsley Ben-Adir as Ken, Ncuti Gatwa as Ken, Scott Evans as Ken, John Cena as Ken, Tom Stourton as Ken, and Rob Brydon as Ken. Michael Cera is also here as Allan.

Barbie kicks off in Barbieland, where all the Barbies live their best days every day and nothing ever goes wrong, unless you’re Kate McKinnon. The Kens exist in the world to be eye candy for Barbie and to get their confirmation of existence from Barbie. The Kens of the world hang out at the beach and party while the Barbies hold all the important positions and I do mean every single one. But this world is flipped turned upside down when the fire nation attacks.

By which I mean Barbie starts feeling existential dread and her heels drop. Barbie meets with Weird Barbie, played by Kate McKinnon, who explains that her changes are due to the real world where someone is changing Barbie’s personality. Probably a child playing with her badly. So she reluctantly brings Ryan Gosling Ken along with her to the real world to uncover the child and put everything back to how it was.

Which brings us to the real world characters. The CEO of Mattel is played by who else but Will Ferrell. Barbie meets the executive leadership of Mattel only to disappointingly learn that all of them are men. This is one of the points of the film where the movie tries to criticize Mattel while also not criticizing them too much. Ferrel’s unnamed character is poised as a guy who while he won’t put women in any real position of power at the company, is more interested in helping young girls achieve their dreams than he cares about money. In the most non-creepy way possible, he elaborates.

It’s also oddly funny since Mattel in real life actually has four women on its eleven member executive team. Ferrell and his crew set out to capture Barbie to return her to Barbieland because naturally the cross-over of fictional characters into the real world brings with it all sorts of “this will destroy the fabric of reality” implications. Barbie meets Sasha (Ariana Greenblatt) and her mother Gloria (America Ferrera), the latter of which is the one who was messing with her.

I thought Barbie was a great movie, and it’s definitely not for kids. I’m not sure where the promotion of homosexuality comes from, but there is a scene where Ryan Gosling and Simu Liu offer to “beach each other off” and that’s pretty hot. It has a lot of thoughts on concepts like masculinity, the patriarchy, feminism, and what it means to truly be alive. Ken goes to the real world and learns that men basically rule everything, so he takes that information back to Barbieland and turns it into a shithole where women are reprogrammed to be unambitious bombos who serve their men and dudes drink brewski beers and live in their mojo dojo casa houses.

It is hilarious when the real world and Barbieland mix, like the idea that everything that’s invented in Barbieland automatically and irrevocably becomes a product in the real world. When Ken comes up with the mojo dojo casa house, Mattel’s plants immediately put it into production and the executives apparently can’t do anything about it, although they note that it is selling like hotcakes.

There’s a lot of good humor pointed at Mattel including nods to very old and highly forgotten discontinued Barbie dolls like the creepy Sugar Daddy Ken, Gay Ken, pregnant Barbie Midge, and Barbie with a television in her back, a toy that pleases nobody. There’s a little point where the movie is talking about not fitting into the stereotypical idea of beauty, and then notes that casting Margot Robbie was probably a bad idea to reinforce this lesson.

It also has a really good soundtrack. I don’t have anything deep to say about Barbie other than that it’s a really good movie. You can find deep analysis about the themes somewhere else. I love Kate McKinnon.

Rating: A-