Barbie is agonizingly close to being a masterpiece. Imagine your run of the mill 2020s high budget film. Now let's go through it with a fine comb and add a bunch of brilliant tiny details to the first two acts, but then let's have a third act that fits the modern trend of overstaying its welcome and failing to provide satisfactory answers to its own questions and lacks all those fun little bits that made you love the first two thirds of the movie.
Without spoiling plot, Barbie much like Game of Thrones and Hunger Games hints at complex understanding of social and political issues but ultimately settles on the safest most vanilla possible answers to those problems. It also, in modern fashion, wastes time going off on tangents.
I feel, much like Margot Robbie, pulled in two directions. A part of me wants to praise the film for shedding on light on feminist issues while another wishes to tear it to shreds for copping out in the end.
The further one gets into Barbie, the less its complexities feel like they are there to make a point, and the more it feels they are there to fill time.
If you're like me you'll leave in a disappointed but forgiving mood. Even if the ending fumbles what was set up, I can't forget my enjoyment of the setting up itself.
Without spoiling plot, Barbie much like Game of Thrones and Hunger Games hints at complex understanding of social and political issues but ultimately settles on the safest most vanilla possible answers to those problems. It also, in modern fashion, wastes time going off on tangents.
I feel, much like Margot Robbie, pulled in two directions. A part of me wants to praise the film for shedding on light on feminist issues while another wishes to tear it to shreds for copping out in the end.
The further one gets into Barbie, the less its complexities feel like they are there to make a point, and the more it feels they are there to fill time.
If you're like me you'll leave in a disappointed but forgiving mood. Even if the ending fumbles what was set up, I can't forget my enjoyment of the setting up itself.