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Movie Review: Barbie

Warner Bros.’ latest foray into nostalgia is colorful, musical and … controversial as it explores feminism and masculinity in ways that are likely to leave viewers with very different reactions. 

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Common sense media reviewers.

Clever, colorful comedy with sophisticated themes, script.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Promotes idea that feminism is inclusive of all wo

Barbie is curious, empathetic, brave, and kind, an

The main Barbie (Margot Robbie) and Ken (Ryan Gosl

A big fight among a lot of characters involves use

Ken asks Barbie to spend the night. When she asks

One bleeped "motherf--," plus a few uses of words

Barbie and Mattel brands are in nearly every scene

The Kens have a lot of "brewskis" (beers), as well

Parents need to know that writer-director Greta Gerwig's all-star take on Barbie has a sophisticated message about feminism and the patriarchy (and, consequently, a screenplay that will likely go over younger kids' heads). The movie follows "Stereotypical Barbie" (Margot Robbie) and her handsome but insecure …

Positive Messages

Promotes idea that feminism is inclusive of all women -- and that being a woman is complicated and sometimes messy. Barbieland is welcoming, if naive about the ways the real world works. Encourages women to support one another, to be free of the many standards thrust upon them by society. Emphasizes importance of finding out who you are separately from your relationships with other people.

Positive Role Models

Barbie is curious, empathetic, brave, and kind, and she doesn't give up on her goals. She realizes that she doesn't have to be "perfect" to have value. Ken is insecure and shallow but develops meaningfully over the course of the story. The Barbies have power (until they fall under the sway of the patriarchy), and they eventually learn how to coexist with the Kens. Gloria is an observant, loving mother, and her daughter, Sasha, is smart and bold.

Diverse Representations

The main Barbie (Margot Robbie) and Ken (Ryan Gosling) are White and conventionally attractive -- to the point where traits like flat feet and cellulite are, albeit satirically, treated as disgusting. The rest of the Barbies and Kens in Barbieland are diverse and inclusive in many ways. There are Barbies and/or Kens who are of color, have a disability (one Barbie uses a wheelchair), and represent a range of body types, backgrounds, and professions. One Barbie is played by Hari Nef, who's trans, but her identity isn't referenced in the movie. Gloria is played by Honduran American actor America Ferrera, and her daughter, Sasha, is played by Ariana Greenblatt, who's Latina. The movie was directed and co-written by female filmmaker Greta Gerwig.

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Violence & Scariness

A big fight among a lot of characters involves use of silly weapons and physical grappling; another fight includes a chokehold. Barbie runs away from the Mattel executives who want to "box" her; they chase her in a scene with a lot of slapstick. There's a high-speed pursuit, but no one is injured. The Barbie cars spin out and flip over, but no one gets hurt. Ken has a fall and is taken to an ambulance/clinic for treatment. Barbie admits to having persistent thoughts about death.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Ken asks Barbie to spend the night. When she asks why, he says because they're boyfriend and girlfriend, but he doesn't know what that really entails. Barbie makes a comment about her and Ken not having genitals. A character wonders what kind of "nude blob" a Ken is "packing." Suggestive pickup lines and double entendres. After the Kens take over, several Barbies are shown flirting with and serving the Kens, often scantily clad. The primary Ken is frequently shirtless; some of the other Kens are too. Ken tries to kiss Barbie a couple of times, but she tells him no or dodges it.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

One bleeped "motherf--," plus a few uses of words including "damn," "hell," "crap," "bimbo," "tramp," "stupid," "penis," "vagina," "crazy," "nut job," "jeez," "oh my God," "for Christ's sake," "freaking," "frigging," "shut up," "up the wazoo," the suggestive euphemism "beach you off," and catcalls and double entendres.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Barbie and Mattel brands are in nearly every scene of the movie, including references to real Barbie dolls and accessories. Other featured brands include Duolingo, Hydro Flask, Hummer, Suburban, Chevy, Birkenstock, and Chanel. Clips from movies like The Godfather and Pride & Prejudice are seen.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

The Kens have a lot of "brewskis" (beers), as well as red cups, and a party scene shows the primary Ken holding what looks like a wine glass. He also mentions being "day drunk" at one point.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that writer-director Greta Gerwig 's all-star take on Barbie has a sophisticated message about feminism and the patriarchy (and, consequently, a screenplay that will likely go over younger kids' heads). The movie follows "Stereotypical Barbie" ( Margot Robbie ) and her handsome but insecure (boy)friend, Ken ( Ryan Gosling ), as they venture into the human world and discover the shocking-to-them truth that Barbie dolls didn't actually solve the problems of sexism and patriarchal control. While there's no sex in the movie (the Barbies and Kens are frank about not having genitals), Kens are shown shirtless, Barbies get catcalled, and there are suggestive references to the dolls' bodies -- including Ken's "nude bulge" -- and how a male-dominated society expects women to be ornamental and helpful. There's a bleeped use of "motherf--" (plus "crap," "shut up," "oh my God," etc.), a couple of big brawls with silly weapons, slapstick chases, beer drinking, and near-constant mentions of Barbie-maker Mattel. Characters demonstrate empathy and perseverance, and Barbieland is populated by a diverse group of Barbies and Kens from a range of body sizes, abilities, genders, and racial and ethnic backgrounds. The supporting cast includes Simu Liu , Issa Rae , America Ferrera , Will Ferrell , Emma Mackey , and Michael Cera . To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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Community Reviews

• Parents say (184)
• Kids say (207)

Based on 184 parent reviews

Ruined by Political Messaging and Cheap Potshots

It’s pg-13 and i think that’s about right. but you know your child., what's the story.

BARBIE opens with a Helen Mirren -narrated 2001: A Space Odyssey homage that explains how the advent of the Barbie doll changed girls' playtime forever, allowing them to imagine unlimited futures and roles beyond motherhood. Then viewers are taken to a parallel universe called Barbieland, where myriad Barbies live in harmony with a bunch of Kens and their pals Midge and Skipper. Since Barbies rule this idealistic, inclusive land -- serving as everything from president ( Issa Rae ) and Supreme Court justices to Nobel laureates, surgeons, etc. -- they believe that the real world is similarly woman- and girl-friendly. None is more sure of that than "Stereotypical Barbie" ( Margot Robbie ), who's always perfect from head to toe, hosting nightly parties and sleepovers and occasionally paying attention to Ken ( Ryan Gosling ), who does little more than stand around at the beach with the other Kens and yearn after her. But when Barbie starts to have thoughts about death, she loses her permanent foot arch and sprouts a spot of cellulite, forcing her to visit the wise but isolated "Weird Barbie" ( Kate McKinnon ). Weird Barbie explains that Stereotypical Barbie will continue to deteriorate if she doesn't cross over into the human world, find the girl who's playing with her, and cheer her up. So Barbie and stowaway Ken set off on a quest to Los Angeles. As Barbie tries to find her human, she realizes that the human world isn't at all what she expected. Meanwhile, Ken is in awe of how much more powerful men are in the real world than they are in Barbieland.

Is It Any Good?

Greta Gerwig 's delightful comedy adventure is bolstered by Robbie and Gosling's impeccable performances, a top-notch ensemble cast, and a witty screenplay. The two stars are perfectly cast in the iconic lead roles, humanizing the doll characters and nailing both the emotional beats and the comedic aspects of Barbie's and Ken's development. The sprawling supporting cast is also well selected, with memorable performances from Rae as the Barbie president, America Ferrera as truth-telling human mom Gloria, Simu Liu as Gosling's rival Ken, and Will Ferrell as the smarmy CEO of Mattel. Three young actors from Sex Education -- Emma Mackey , Ncuti Gatwa , and Connor Swindells -- make notable appearances in supporting roles, and Academy Award-winning filmmaker/screenwriter Emerald Fennell turns up as Barbie's discontinued pregnant friend, Midge. Overall, Barbieland is a pleasingly inclusive place, where the Barbies and Kens can be more than thin, White, and blond as they sing and dance in their carefully curated outfits.

This movie isn't like the many animated Barbie movies , and its sophisticated themes may land better with teens and adults than tweens and kids. But the contrast between the movie's serious societal commentary and the trippy, nostalgic comedy manages not to feel off-putting or off-balance. Ken's explanations about the benefits of the patriarchy (horses, hats, all the top jobs!) are laugh-out-loud funny, while Gloria's passionate speech about the ways women must and mustn't act in human society rings soberingly true. For all of the jokes, there's a ton of heart in the screenplay, with Robbie and Gosling both getting many scene-stealing, moving monologues. Their memorable portrayals carry the movie, but the behind-the-scenes technicians deserve awards, too, including production designer Sarah Greenwood for the film's pink-infused Barbie-core set pieces, music supervisor George Drakoulias for the Mark Ronson-produced soundtrack, Oscar-winning costume designer Jacqueline Durran for the hundreds of authentic Barbie and Ken costumes, and director of photography Rodrigo Prieto for the fizzy cinematography. An ideal mother-daughter pick and a collaborative achievement worthy of the hype, this Barbie is a keeper.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about Barbie 's message: that society has sexist, contradictory, unattainable expectations for women. Do you agree? What are your thoughts about what it means to be a girl and a woman?

Discuss the way that patriarchy and feminism are explored or explained in the movie. Does Barbieland treat Kens the way women are treated in the human world? Why is Ken so delighted to return to Barbieland?

Although the movie is about a children's doll, it's not really aimed at young kids, with its mature themes and humor. Do you think a movie inspired by and about toys needs to be appropriate for little kids?

Talk about the relationship between human mom Gloria and her middle school-age daughter, Sasha. What changes about their connection once they meet Barbie?

Did you notice positive diverse representation in the movie? Why is that important?

Movie Details

• In theaters : July 21, 2023
• On DVD or streaming : October 17, 2023
• Cast : Margot Robbie , Ryan Gosling , America Ferrera , Will Ferrell
• Director : Greta Gerwig
• Inclusion Information : Female directors, Female actors, Latino actors, Female writers
• Studio : Warner Bros.
• Genre : Comedy
• Topics : Princesses, Fairies, Mermaids, and More , Friendship , Great Girl Role Models
• Character Strengths : Empathy , Perseverance
• Run time : 114 minutes
• MPAA rating : PG-13
• MPAA explanation : suggestive references and brief language
• Awards : Academy Award , Common Sense Selection , Golden Globe
• Last updated : March 11, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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‘Barbie’ Review: Out of the Box and On the Road

She’s in the driver’s seat, headed for uncharted territory (flat feet!). But there are limits to how much dimension even Greta Gerwig can give this branded material.

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By Manohla Dargis

Can a doll with an ingratiating smile, impossible curves and boobs ready for liftoff be a feminist icon? That’s a question that swirls through Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie,” a live-action, you-go-girl fantasia about the world’s most famous doll. For more than half a century, Barbie has been, by turns, celebrated as a font of girlhood pleasure and play, and rebuked as an instrument of toxic gender norms and consumerist ideals of femininity. If Barbie has been a culture-war hot spot for about as long as it’s been on the shelves, it’s because the doll perfectly encapsulates changing ideas about girls and women: our Barbies, ourselves.

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Gerwig carves a comic pathway into these representational thickets partly by means of mythology. In outline, the movie offers a savvy, updated riff on the Greek myth of Pygmalion, which has inspired myriad stories about men and the women they invent. In the original, a male sculptor creates and falls in love with a beautiful statue; in George Bernard Shaw’s play “Pygmalion” and in the Lerner-Loewe musical “My Fair Lady,” she’s a Cockney flower girl. In “Barbie,” by contrast, it’s the imaginations of the girls and women who play with the doll that give it something like life, a fitting shift for a movie that takes sisterhood as a starting point.

These imaginers first and foremost include Gerwig herself. The movie opens with a prelude that parodies the “dawn of man” sequence in “2001: A Space Odyssey” (with girls, not ape-men), and then shifts to Barbie Land, a kaleidoscopic wonderland. There, Gerwig sets the scene and tone with Barbie (Margot Robbie) — who calls herself stereotypical Barbie — soon floating out of her Dreamhouse, as if she were being lifted by a giant invisible hand. It’s a witty auteurist flourish. The Mattel brand looms large here, but Gerwig, whose directorial command is so fluent she seems born to filmmaking, is announcing that she’s in control.

‘Barbie’ | Anatomy of a Scene

Greta gerwig, the co-writer and director of “barbie,” narrates this musical sequence, including ryan gosling’s performance of the song “i’m just ken.”.

“My name is Greta Gerwig, and I am the co-writer and director of ‘Barbie.’” “(SINGING) I’m just Ken. Anywhere else, I’d be a ten.” “The thing that I can say most about this sequence is that this was the thing that I most knew what I wanted it to be, and no one else knew what I wanted it to be. Every time I look at this, it’s just the ridiculousness of how we did it, which is they’re obviously arriving on these pedalos on a beach that has no water. It’s a solid mass with these waves that are sculptures. And I had everyone in this scene pretend to be moving in slow motion except for Ryan, who’s singing. And I think I got four takes into it, and I thought, this just — is this so ridiculous that I’m doing pretend slow motion? But then I thought, I think I just have to commit. Now I’ve done it. There’s nothing else I can do. My stunt coordinator, Roy Taylor, who’s a brilliant, brilliant person, and he worked with my choreographer, Jenny White, because I wanted all the fighting to be somewhere between dancing and a kind of vaudevillian ridiculousness of a Buster Keaton or a Charlie Chaplin. I love that kind of physical comedy. So you see men tangoing in the background in addition to fighting. Because they’re Kens, they’re children. It all sort of goes together.” “Ah!” “Ah! Ah!” “Then we have our Barbies, who are sort of watching with their pink boilersuits, which I think Jacqueline Durran, who is the costume designer, she did the pink boilersuits because I wore boilersuits every day. And she was like, I’ve decided what the Barbies will wear when they’re taking back Barbieland. And I cried when I saw it because I was like, oh, it’s a tribute to me. So much of this sequence is the song that Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt wrote, which was not in the script. But I did ask them because they were writing the song that became Dua Lipa’s ‘Dance the Night.’ I said we need a Ken song, and I think it goes in the battle. And then they wrote this song from the perspective of Ken. And then I said, Ryan, are you up for singing this? And he said yes, ultimately. But initially, I don’t know. I think he was like, you never said anything about this at the beginning. But I think they sent me 30 seconds of an idea for the song, that I just loved. And then I was like, Can you make it 11 minutes long? Because I want it to go through this whole sequence. And then this part, this dream ballet part, Sarah Greenwood, who is a production designer, and Katie Spencer built this stage to echo the dream ballet stage from ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ because I love that movie. And that has one of the best dream ballets of all time because they have a dream ballet that is inside of another dream ballet, which, I think, when people are like, will anyone understand this? I was like, yes. There is a context for this. They’ll grasp it. And every Ken, every Barbie, is a dancer the whole time. And then I chose all the actors, too, because they were good dancers. Jenny White, who was my choreographer, she and I looked at a lot of different musicals, different dream ballets. But Busby Berkeley was a huge reference.” “(SINGING) I’m just Ken. Anywhere else, I’d be a ten.” “I kind of love that ‘we’re putting on a show’ element of this movie, which is very connected to theater and also the pleasure of making something in a childlike way. And we started with dance rehearsals, and I think it was a good way to put everybody in that mindset of it’s not about perfection. It’s about this joy. And they obviously embodied that. In a way, you want the audience to walk out and say, I’d like to go make something. I want to go play. I want to go set something up. I want to do a performance. And that’s how I felt when I watched a lot of movies when I was a kid, or theater. I instantly was like, I’m going to organize my own version of ‘Starlight Express’ right now.” “(SINGING) Nobody else Nobody else I’m just Ken.”

Written by Gerwig and her partner, Noah Baumbach, the movie introduces Barbie on yet another perfect day in Barbie Land, in which dolls played by humans exist in what resembles a toyland gated community. There, framed by a painted mountain range, Barbie and a diverse group of other Barbies rule, living in homes with few exterior walls. With their flat roofs, clean lines and pink décor — a spherical TV, Eero Saarinen-style tulip table and chairs — the overarching look evokes the era when Barbie first hit the market. It’s very Palm Springs circa 1960, an aesthetic that could be called bubble-gum midcentury modern.

Gerwig has fun in Barbie Land, and in her role as a friendly playmate, she works hard to ensure you do too. She takes you for a leisurely spin, cranks the tunes, stages some old-school, Hollywood-style musical numbers and brings in those eternal sidekicks, the Kens (with a scene-stealing Ryan Gosling chief among them). The production design (Sarah Greenwood) and costumes (Jacqueline Durran) offer ticklish pleasure but also underscore this place’s artificiality. Barbie, et al., are of our world and not, existing in a plasticky paradise that proves less hospitable when she begins having un-Barbie thoughts and experiences: She thinks of death, and then her feet, which are molded to fit high heels, go flat.

This change to Barbie’s body is played for laughs — the other Barbies are horrified — but it’s crucial to the plot and to Gerwig’s intentions. Once Barbie’s feet touch the ground, she seeks advice from a misfit version of the doll (the invaluable Kate McKinnon), who prescribes Birkenstocks and a trip to the real world. Soon, Barbie — with Ken riding shotgun — journeys into something like reality; that they land in Los Angeles reads like a puckish joke. There, Barbie is astonished to discover sexism, and Ken is delighted to discover patriarchy, contrapuntal revelations that generate further comedy and something like enlightenment.

Gerwig handles the transition between realms smoothly, but even in this bouncy, happy movie, reality proves a bummer. It’s amusing when Barbie points out a billboard filled with women, mistaking them for the Supreme Court because that’s what the court looks like in Barbie Land, just with more pink. She learns how wrong she was, which is to Gerwig’s point. But the weight of our world, emblematized at least for this viewer by the real Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade , proves unbearably heavy. However politically sharp, the gag is an unpleasant reminder of all the profoundly unfunny ways in which this world, with its visible and invisible hands, tries to control women, putting them into little boxes.

Mattel has long tried to reconcile Barbie with the real world. The toy’s origins lie with Ruth Handler, a founder of Mattel who wanted to make a doll for girls like her daughter, Barbara. Handler found her inspiration in Europe with an adult-looking German doll called Bild Lilli that Mattel reconfigured. Some buyers pushed back: “The idea of a doll with breasts was not received well,” Handler said in a 1994 Lilith magazine interview.

Barbie’s breasts and the rest of her continued to generate criticism, including from physicians who treat body dysmorphia . In recent years, Mattel has tried to make the doll more culturally relevant, adding careers and not just new merch to its product portfolio. “When a girl plays with Barbie she imagines everything she can become,” a 2015 Mattel ad promised during a period of sluggish sales. Its Fashionistas line introduced new facial shapes, eye colors and skin tones, followed by petite, curvy and tall versions, a diversity that has paid off . In 2019, Mattel announced that this Barbie movie was going forward with Robbie as the star.

As a performer, Robbie always pops onscreen, and her turn here as a classic blond bombshell who has more going on than that sexist stereotype suggests is charming and subtly phased; you can see the light turn on gradually behind her eyes. Like America Ferrera’s sympathetic Mattel employee, Robbie warms the movie, expanding and deepening its emotions. That’s particularly necessary because Ken’s comic obtuseness and arc — as well as Gosling’s deadpan and boy-band dance moves — recurrently draw attention away from the actress and her character. However narratively motivated, this upstaging of Barbie effectively suggests that only the Kens of the world need their consciousness raised.

The real world may initially bewilder Barbie, but she figures it out. That’s just what you’d expect given that Mattel partnered with Warner Bros. for this movie and is banking big on it . For her part, Gerwig figures it out by vibing on joy, tapping into nostalgia, showcasing her large cast (Will Ferrell, Issa Rae, Simu Liu, Dua Lipa, Helen Mirren, Michael Cera, etc.) and, for the most part, dodging the thorny contradictions and the criticisms that cling to the doll. And while Gerwig does slip in a few glints of critique — as when a teenage girl accuses Barbie of promoting consumerism, shortly before she pals up with our heroine — these feel more like mere winks at the adults in the audience than anything else.

Like “Air,” Ben Affleck’s recent movie about how Nike signed Michael Jordan, as well as other entertainments tethered to their consumer subjects, “Barbie” can only push so hard. These movies can’t damage the goods, though I’m not sure most viewers would want that; our brands, ourselves, after all. That said, Gerwig does much within the material’s inherently commercial parameters, though it isn’t until the finale — capped by a sharply funny, philosophically expansive last line — that you see the “Barbie” that could have been. Gerwig’s talents are one of this movie’s pleasures, and I expect that they’ll be wholly on display in her next one — I just hope that this time it will be a house of her own wildest dreams.

Barbie Rated PG-13 for playful fighting and peril. Running time: 1 hour 54 minutes. In theaters.

Audio produced by Kate Winslett .

Manohla Dargis is the chief film critic of The Times, which she joined in 2004. She has an M.A. in cinema studies from New York University, and her work has been anthologized in several books. More about Manohla Dargis

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‘Barbie’ May Be the Most Subversive Blockbuster of the 21st Century

By David Fear

It’s tough to sell a decades-old doll and actively make you question why you’d still buy a toy that comes with so much baggage. (Metaphorically speaking, of course — literal baggage sold separately.) The makers of Barbie know this. They know that you know that it’s an attempt by Mattel to turn their flagship blonde bombshell into a bona fide intellectual property, coming to a multiplex near you courtesy of Warner Bros. And they’re also well aware that the announcement that Greta Gerwig would be co-writing and directing this movie about everyone’s favorite tiny, leggy bearer of impossible beauty standards suddenly transformed it from “dual corporate cash-in” to “dual corporate cash-in with a very high probability of wit, irony, and someone quoting Betty Friedan and/or Rebecca Walker.”

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Every morning, Barbie (Robbie) wakes up in her beautiful, open-faced mansion, waves to the legion of other Barbies in their beautiful, open-faced Barbieland mansions, and greets the day with a smile. Early afternoons are reserved for listening to President Barbie ( Issa Rae ) make executive decisions, or watching a Barbie journalist win a Barbie Pulitzer, or cheering a Barbie Supreme Court that lays down the law for the good of all Barbiekind. Late afternoons are for going to the beach, where Ken (Gosling) endlessly competes for Barbie’s affections against Ken (Simu Liu) and Ken (Kingsley Ben-Adir), among other Kens. Nighttime is for extravagantly choreographed disco-dance parties , DJ-ed by none other than Barbie (Hari Nef), and — much to Ken’s dismay — all-girl sleepovers. Eventually, the cardboard backdrop will rotate from moon to sun, and it’s time for yet another day in utopia.

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Once in our world, Barbie will encounter sexual harassment, gender inequity, the benefits of crying, the CEO of Mattel ( Will Ferrell ) and the mother (America Ferrara) and daughter (Ariana Greenblatt) who’ve introduced such morbid thoughts into her brain. Ken will discover horses, Hummer SUVs, and toxic masculinity . She returns with her new human friends to Barbieland in a state of dazed enlightenment. He comes back as a full-blown Kencel, spreading a gospel of full-frontal dude-ity.

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Critical thinking isn’t mind corruption, of course. Nor is pointing out that you can love something and recognize that it’s flawed or has become inflammatory over time, then striving to fix it. It’s definitely not a bad thing to turn a potential franchise, whether built on a line of dolls or not, into something that refuses to dumb itself down or pander to the lowest common denominator. And the victory that is Gerwig, Robbie, and Gosling — along with a supporting cast and crew that revel in the idea of joining a benefic Barbie party — slipping in heady notions about sexualization, capitalism, social devolution, human rights and self-empowerment, under the guise of a lucrative, brand-extending trip down memory lane? That’s enough to make you giddy. We weren’t kidding about the “subversive” part above; ditto the “blockbuster.” A big movie can still have big ideas in 2023. Even a Barbie movie. Especially a Barbie movie.

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Barbie First Reviews: Hysterically Funny, Perfectly Cast, and Affectionately Crafted

Critics say greta gerwig's send-up of the iconic doll is a thoughtfully self-aware, laugh-out-loud comedy that benefits from a flawless margot robbie and a scene-stealing ryan gosling..

TAGGED AS: Comedy , First Reviews , movies

Here’s what critics are saying about Barbie :

Is the movie funny?

“ Barbie can be hysterically funny, with giant laugh-out-loud moments generously scattered throughout.” – Christy Lemire, RogerEbert.com

“Often funny, occasionally very funny, but sometimes also somehow demure and inhibited, as if the urge to be funny can only be mean and satirical.” – Peter Bradshaw, Guardian

“The entire screenplay is packed with winking one-liners, the kind that reward a rewatch.” – Devan Coggan, Entertainment Weekly

“One of the funniest comedies of the year.” – Ross Bonaime, Collider

Will fans of Greta Gerwig’s other movies enjoy Barbie?

“In some ways, Barbie builds on themes Gerwig explored in Lady Bird and Little Women .” – Lovia Gyarkye, Hollywood Reporter

“ Barbie balances the incredibly pointed specificity of the jokes and relatability of Lady Bird , with the celebration of women and the ability to show a new angle of something we thought we knew like we saw with Gerwig’s take on Little Women .” – Ross Bonaime, Collider

“Never doubt Gerwig.” – Devan Coggan, Entertainment Weekly

(Photo by ©Warner Bros. Pictures)

How is the script?

“It’s almost shocking how much this duo gets away with in this script, and in certain moments, like a major speech by America Ferrera’s Gloria, who works at Mattel, it’s beautiful that some of these scenes can exist in a big-budget summer film like this.” – Ross Bonaime, Collider

“One character delivers a lengthy, third-act speech about the conundrum of being a woman and the contradictory standards to which society holds us… [and it’s] a preachy momentum killer — too heavy-handed, too on-the-nose, despite its many insights. ” – Christy Lemire, RogerEbert.com

“The moments that aren’t just laughing at and with the crowd, however, are shoved into long, important monologues that, with each recitation, dull the impact of their message.” – Lovia Gyarkye, Hollywood Reporter

Does it stick the landing?

“The second half of Barbie bogs down a bit.” – Michael Philips, Chicago Tribune

”It’s frustratingly uneven at times. After coming on strong with wave after wave of zippy hilarity, the film drags in the middle as it presents its more serious themes.” – Christy Lemire, RogerEbert.com

How does it look?

“It’s a visual feast.” – Christy Lemire, RogerEbert.com

“Highest honors to production designer Sarah Greenwood, costume designer Jacqueline Durran and cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto.” – Michael Philips, Chicago Tribune

How is Margot Robbie as Barbie?

“She’s the perfect casting choice; it’s impossible to imagine anyone else in the role… Her performance is a joy to behold.” – Christy Lemire, RogerEbert.com

“She gives an impressively transformative performance, moving her arms and joints like they’re actually made of plastic.” – Devan Coggan, Entertainment Weekly

“Anything Gerwig and Baumbach’s verbally dexterous script requires, from Barbie’s first teardrop to the final punchline, Robbie handles with unerring precision.” – Michael Philips, Chicago Tribune

“Robbie is simply incredible in the title role… She has often excelled in these types of roles where we see the power a woman truly has in her environment, but there might not be a better example of that than in Barbie .” – Ross Bonaime, Collider

What about Ryan Gosling’s Ken?

“For an actor who’s spent much of his career brooding moodily, here, he finally gets to tap into his inner Mousketeer.” – Devan Coggan, Entertainment Weekly

“Ryan Gosling is a consistent scene-stealer… He’s a total hoot.” – Christy Lemire, RogerEbert.com

“Ken allows Gosling to go broad in a way that we’ve never seen him go before, and the result is charming, bizarre, and one of the most hysterical performances of the year.” – Ross Bonaime, Collider

Does it feel like a toy commercial?

“It’s Gerwig’s care and attention to detail that gives Barbie an actual point of view, elevating it beyond every other cynical, IP-driven cash grab.” – Devan Coggan, Entertainment Weekly

“ Barbie could’ve just been a commercial, but Gerwig makes this life of plastic into something truly fantastic.” – Ross Bonaime, Collider

“This movie is perhaps a giant two-hour commercial for a product, although no more so than The Lego Movie , yet Barbie doesn’t go for the comedy jugular anywhere near as gleefully as that.” – Peter Bradshaw, Guardian

“The muddied politics and flat emotional landing of Barbie are signs that the picture ultimately serves a brand.” – Lovia Gyarkye, Hollywood Reporter

Are there any big problems?

“If the film has a flaw, it’s that Barbie and Ken are so delightful that their real-world counterparts feel dull by comparison.” – Devan Coggan, Entertainment Weekly

“The only segment of Barbie that doesn’t work as well as it maybe should is the addition of Mattel into this narrative.” – Ross Bonaime, Collider

“Because the marketing campaign has been so clever and so ubiquitous, you may discover that you’ve already seen a fair amount of the movie’s inspired moments.” – Christy Lemire, RogerEbert.com

Who is the movie ultimately for?

“ Barbie works hard to entertain both 11-year-old girls and the parents who’ll bring them to the theater.” – Devan Coggan, Entertainment Weekly

“ Barbie doesn’t have that tiring air of trying to be everything to everybody. With luck, and a big opening, it might actually find the audience it deserves just by being its curious, creative, buoyant self.” – Michael Philips, Chicago Tribune

Barbie opens in theaters everywhere on July 21, 2023.

Thumbnail image by ©Warner Bros. Pictures

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Barbie review – a riotous, candy-coloured feminist fable

Barbie takes a ride from her dream house to reality as Little Women writer-director Greta Gerwig takes another cultural icon and lovingly subverts it

W riter-director Greta Gerwig’s cinematic reinvention of Mattel’s most (in)famous toy comes on like a sugar-rush mashup of Pixar’s Toy Story 2 , Carlo Collodi’s Pinocchio , the cult live-action feature Josie and the Pussycats and the Roger Ebert-scripted exploitation romp Beyond the Valley of the Dolls . It’s a riotously entertaining candy-coloured feminist fable that manages simultaneously to celebrate, satirise and deconstruct its happy-plastic subject. Audiences will be delighted. Mattel should be ecstatic.

After a heavily trailered 2001 -parody opening, we move to a pastel pink haven in which, “thanks to Barbie , all problems of feminism and equal rights have been solved”. This is Barbieland – a fantasy world in which big-haired dolls can be anything (lawyers, doctors, physicists, presidents), thereby inspiring equivalent feminine achievement out there in the “real world”. (“We fixed everything so all women in the real world are happy and powerful!”)

Like a dreamy version of the nightmarish Being John Malkovich , everyone here is Barbie. Except the men, who are just Ken. Or Allan (a hapless Michael Cera ). But mainly just Ken – an appendage without an appendage. At the centre of all this self-referential fluff is producer-star Margot Robbie’s “Stereotypical Barbie” – a role so perfect that when Helen Mirren’s narrator makes a sardonic gag about the casting, no one minds. So it comes as a surprise when this habitually smiley creature finds herself haunted by thoughts of sadness, anxiety and death. Worse still, she develops flat feet and (whisper it!) cellulite – two horsemen of the Barbie apocalypse.

A visit to Kate McKinnon’s “Weird Barbie” (“she was played with too hard ”) reveals that a wormhole has opened between this world and the next. Now, like Amy Adams in Enchanted , our fairytale heroine must take a ride to reality, accompanied by Stowaway Ken (Ryan Gosling), who promptly discovers The Patriarchy, in which men (and horses) are in charge!

Meanwhile at Mattel HQ, Will Ferrell is reprising his Lego Movie role as the adult quasher of childish dreams, demanding that Barbie get “back in the box”. But by now, Barbie has met gothy teen Sasha (Ariana Greenblatt), who tells her that “you’ve been making women feel bad about themselves since you were invented”, adding; “You set the feminist movement back 50 years, you fascist!” Far from saving the world, Barbie seems to have helped create a dystopia in which “men look at me like an object” and “everyone hates women!”.

There’s something of the rebellious spirit of Todd Haynes’s 1988 cult classic Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story about Gerwig’s deceptively upbeat blockbuster. Haynes’s zero-budget underground masterpiece (which has never had an official release) used increasingly disfigured Barbie dolls to tell the tragic story of a talented musician whose life was overshadowed by anorexia. Yet in Gerwig’s multiplex-friendly spectacular, this spectre of unrealisable expectation is slyly reconfigured into a weirdly liberating parable about being whatever (size, profession, attitude) you want to be – whether Ken and The Patriarchy like it or not.

There are jokes about the red pill from The Matrix , the snow globe from Citizen Kane , the male “meaning” of Coppola’s The Godfather , and fanboyish emotional overinvestment in Zack Snyder’s director’s cut of Justice League . Yet Barbie is never anything less than inclusive – meaning that young(ish) fans raised on such animated staples as Barbie in the Nutcracker and Barbie of Swan Lake will find as much to cheer about as wizened old critics looking for smart film references. Like her terrific 2019 adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women , Gerwig’s latest has no intention of ditching its source material’s core audience, even while allowing those with more snooty cinephile tastes to excuse their enjoyment of her film by comparing it with canonical works.

A smart script, co-written with Noah Baumbach , reminds us of Mattel’s constant attempts to reinvent their product (Earring Magic Ken;Palm Beach Sugar Daddy; inflatable breasts Skipper – yes, really ) and their embarrassed discontinuation of models that incurred consumer/retailer ire. It all culminates in an entertainingly feisty dismantling of male power (“He took your home; he brainwashed your friends; he wants to control the government”), pepped up by Gosling’s deliciously vacuous apex-Ken performance and carried shoulder-high by Robbie, without whom this audacious flim-flam could well have fallen flat on its face. A moving cameo by Rhea Perlman as the creator of all this madness lends a touch of heartfelt pathos. But it’s Robbie and Gerwig (along with the production designers and songwriters) who make this fizz, ensuring that everything is awesome, even when it isn’t.

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The Barbie movie finds all the fun in laughing at the men’s rights movement

It’s a takedown of toxic masculinity tied up with a pretty pink wrapper

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I grew up in a Barbie household, as well as a deeply feminist household. Along with My Little Pony, Cherry Merry Muffin , and (prized above all) my extensive collection of She-Ra action figures, my mother gave me and my sister Barbie dolls for “imaginative play,” something Mom encouraged just as much as she encouraged us to play video games — for hand-eye coordination and for our potential careers in STEM, naturally.

Our TV habits were mediated with feminism in mind, too; I watched and rewatched She-Ra: Princess of Power on VHS, but I barely knew He-Man, whom I considered as irrelevant as Ken. As I grew older and met other kids, though, I realized I had been living in Opposite Land. Everybody else knew He-Man better than She-Ra. The female-dominated world of Barbie, She-Ra, My Little Pony, and so on was a farce. The real world was made for Ken.

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Heading into the press screening for Barbie , I regressed back into the beautiful, childlike misconceptions of my toy collection. I spent my drive to the movie thinking back on my love of Margot Robbie in Birds of Prey and I, Tonya , as well as my admiration for Greta Gerwig’s body of work, from Frances Ha to Little Women . Even knowing this movie would have to wrestle with Mattel’s involvement and control over the massive Barbie brand, I knew director Greta Gerwig and co-writer Noah Baumbach would find their own way to unpack and analyze modern standards of femininity and feminist thought. I figured it’d be a little funny, a little deep, maybe a little too basic, but hopefully smarter than The Lego Movie .

I did not expect Barbie to be a movie about Ken — and more importantly, a movie Ryan Gosling steals with such glorious aplomb that I can’t even be that mad at him for it.

[ Ed. note: Minor setup spoilers ahead for Barbie .]

Don’t get me wrong. Margot Robbie is no slouch as what the movie calls “Stereotypical Barbie” — the blond bombshell that kids in Mattel focus groups point to when presented with diverse Barbie dolls and asked, “Which one is Barbie?” Stereotypical Barbie starts the movie as a confident woman who knows exactly who she is, and doesn’t ever want anything to change. She lives in Barbieland, a fantasy realm conjured by Mattel that’s powered by the imaginations of kids who play with Barbie dolls. It’s a world ruled by Barbies, and unashamed of traditional feminine tropes. The president is a Barbie (played by Issa Rae, in a pink silk “President” sash). The Supreme Court is all Barbie. And every Nobel Prize winner in history is — you guessed it — a Barbie. Every pink-washed DreamHouse mansion in Barbieland is owned by a woman who makes her own money and spends her free time indulging in “girls’ nights” where everybody shares a glorious communal wardrobe.

Stereotypical Barbie has no reason to leave this beautiful feminine realm. She’s forced to trek into the harsh world of Reality only because somewhere, someone is playing with her while experiencing such intense existential angst that their emotions are reaching Barbieland and drilling into Barbie’s psyche. Her real-world owner is inadvertently causing her to think about death, get actual cellulite on her thighs, and even develop articulated ankles that experience all-too-real pain when she stuffs her feet into stiletto heels.

But even before the wall between Barbieland and Reality starts breaking down, it’s all too clear that this is Ken’s movie. At the film’s outset, Barbie has it all, and Robbie sells Barbieland’s bland, uncomplicated happiness with a frozen-but-satisfied smile. For Ken, though, it’s never been that simple. Barbie is happy by default, but Ken is only happy when Barbie acknowledges him. In a world where every night is girls’ night, Ken can never experience satisfaction.

Ken isn’t just frustrated about competing with all the many other Kens for Barbie’s affection — although that is an issue, with hot, comparatively youthful it boy Simu Liu playing a version of Ken who makes Gosling’s Ken sweat bullets. Ken lacks purpose in Barbieland, and he wants that to change. Without Barbie, he’s nothing — and most of the time, Ken is without Barbie. He’s an afterthought whose main role in life is holding her purse.

Barbie starts off slow, doing the work of establishing the cutesy realm of Barbieland so there’s a clear, dark contrast when the film eventually enters Reality. But even in this opening act, Gosling swipes each scene from the sidelines, his face wracked by the near-constant heartbreak of Barbie’s lack of interest in him. As a viewer, I was far more drawn to his arc, even as I worried, Is it a bad thing that Ken is the best thing about the Barbie movie?

But Barbie stays one step ahead of that thought, because it’s all leading up to an expert commentary on how little girls will always realize, sooner or later, that the real world is run by men, and that its Kens have more power than its Barbies. And once Gosling’s Ken makes it to Reality, he realizes this too, and he goes full men’s rights activist, transitioning from Barbie’s placeholder boyfriend into one of the most fascinating antagonists in modern pop cinema.

The film’s comedic yet incisive commentary on toxic masculinity is its strongest throughline, as it infects Gosling’s Ken, and eventually all of the rest of Barbieland’s Kens and Barbies. Whenever the movie is joking about the patriarchy and the very idea of the men’s rights movement, it sings. It also literally sings, with frequent in-jokey background songs, and a sequence where all the Kens bore their respective Barbie girlfriends to tears by whipping out acoustic guitars to sing at her rather than to her. We all know what we don’t want in a man. The far more difficult point to make, it turns out, is about Barbie herself, and what she represents. Who is Barbie in 2023?

Margot Robbie’s Barbie asks that question in a lot of different ways, but the answer becomes no clearer once she visits Reality. It’s useful to capitalize Reality when describing Barbie , because unlike Splash or Enchanted , this movie does not attempt to depict a recognizable version of our human world. Reality as depicted in Barbie is as much of a caricature as Barbieland, stuffed with recognizable tropes: sexist, catcalling construction workers; fist-pumping gym bros; and well-heeled white-collar executives who helpfully explain how the patriarchy works. That works perfectly to illustrate the extreme cartoonishness of men’s rights as interpreted by Ken, but it falls a bit short when it comes to illustrating the complexities of Barbie’s identity as a doll, a global brand, and a social phenomenon, much less a character attempting to understand contemporary American womanhood.

There’s a third rail that Gerwig and Baumbach scarcely dare to touch in Barbie : body image. Barbie designers at Mattel have struggled in this arena, too, as Barbie’s nonstandard but idealized body proportions have remained controversial, even as the company has introduced several variations in recent years . (They include a “curvy” Barbie, a “petite” Barbie , and a Barbie with articulated knees who can use a wheelchair.) Yes, Barbie can have every career imaginable — she can be president , even if real-life women can’t — but can she manage to rise above a size 6?

In the Barbie movie, she certainly can. Robbie definitely doesn’t have the proportions of the original “stereotypical Barbie,” although I’d say she’s close enough. (I don’t care to look up the numerical comparison, because it would only depress me.) But this movie’s full cast of Barbies would absolutely not be able to share their outfits, which the movie never explicitly addresses or resolves. Sharon Rooney of Hulu’s My Mad Fat Diary gets to be a Barbie without her size ever being mentioned. Hari Nef , the first transgender model to sign with IMG Models, is also a Barbie. Like all the other Barbies (and unlike so many trans people), she never has to worry about anybody questioning her genitalia, because nobody in Barbieland has any genitalia whatsoever.

Barbieland is a fantasy of perfect inclusion, yet it’s also a flattened one, because even in Reality, the issues facing non-Barbie-type women never fully surface. They get a quick, pointed acknowledgement from the mouth of Gloria (America Ferrera), a put-upon Reality mom who works for Mattel and still loves Barbie in spite of all the baggage that comes with her. At one point, Gloria runs down the ever-expanding list of double standards that modern American women face, such as the pressure to be “thin,” which women must claim is because they want to be “healthy” so they don’t look vain or shallow, even though they’ll really just be judged for not being thin. None of the non-thin Barbies react to this point, because they don’t quite work in a narrative that has to simplify all the social and gender issues it raises, at least if the credits are ever going to roll.

By the same token, the nonwhite Barbies and Kens argue about “the patriarchy” among themselves upon learning about it, but they don’t ever seem to learn about racial politics, even though Simu Liu’s Ken wouldn’t have existed 13 years ago. (The first-ever Asian Ken doll was, um, “ Samurai Ken ” in 2010.) And Kate McKinnon, playing a so-called Weird Barbie who experienced an extreme haircut and makeover at the hands of an experimental child, never actually answers the question anybody would have upon seeing her gay-ass haircut and knowing the actor’s sexuality. Yet even if no one says it, Weird Barbie is clearly Gay Barbie.

Skipping over all those conversations isn’t an oversight: It’s a series of intentional decisions designed to keep an already overstuffed, heady, and cerebral film moving along at a sprightly pace. I don’t need the Barbie movie, brought to me with Mattel’s approval, to offer incisive political commentary on every issue of the day. It’s more than enough that it unravels so many of America’s masculine anxieties of the moment, and that it does its job backward and in high heels.

Barbie the doll has to be everything for everyone, and she’s never succeeded. Barbie the movie has been asked to perform the same impossible trick — and just like I still feel a sentimental attachment to Barbie, I feel an overwhelming fondness and admiration for the movie’s daring attempt to make it work. I had forgotten that I had ever even experienced the dream world Barbieland offered me as a young girl. Barbie made me remember. That alone is enough to make the whole movie sparkle with surprising, refreshing fire.

Barbie opens in theaters on July 21.

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Barbie review: Welcome to Greta Gerwig's fiercely funny, feminist Dreamhouse

The Barbie movie could’ve been another forgettable, IP-driven cash grab. Instead, the director of Little Women and Lady Bird has crafted a neon pink delight.

Devan Coggan (rhymes with seven slogan) is a senior writer at Entertainment Weekly. Most of her personality is just John Mulaney quotes and Lord of the Rings references.

When Warner Bros. announced plans to launch a Barbie movie, the entire premise sounded a bit like a game of Hollywood Mad Libs gone wrong: Quick, name a beloved indie director ( Greta Gerwig !), an unadapted piece of intellectual property (Barbie dolls!), and an adjective (neon pink!). Every new piece of information that trickled out on the (lengthy) press tour seemed stranger than the last. Gerwig ( Lady Bird , Little Women ) cited 2001: A Space Odyssey and Gene Kelly musicals as her biggest inspirations. Elaborate dance numbers were teased. Ryan Gosling gave a lot of quotes about something called " Kenergy ." What actually was this movie, and could it possibly live up to all that hot pink buzz?

The verdict? Never doubt Gerwig. The Oscar-nominated filmmaker has crafted a fierce, funny, and deeply feminist adventure that dares you to laugh and cry, even if you're made of plastic. It's certainly the only summer blockbuster to pair insightful criticisms of the wage gap with goofy gags about Kens threatening to "beach" each other off.

The film (in theaters this Friday) whisks viewers away to Barbie Land, a candy-colored toy box wonderland of endless sunshine. It's there that our titular heroine ( Margot Robbie ) spends her days, each just as magical and neon as the one before. There are always other Barbies to party with — including Doctor Barbie ( Hari Nef ), President Barbie ( Issa Rae ), and Mermaid Barbie ( Dua Lipa ) — as well as an endless supply of devoted Kens, led by Gosling's frequently shirtless boy-toy. It's a plastic paradise for Robbie's Stereotypical Barbie, the type of doll that immediately comes to mind when you think of Barbie.

But something's gone wrong. Her Malibu Dreamhouse malfunctions; her mind is clouded by un-Barbie-like thoughts of death; and her perfectly arched feet now fall flat on the floor. So, our heroine sets out to seek some answers from Barbie Land's pseudo mystic, Weird Barbie ( Kate McKinnon ), who says a rift has opened up between their world and the real world, and she must brave the long trek to Los Angeles to find the human playing with her doll to remedy the situation. You bet her ever-loyal Ken (Gosling) is coming along for the ride.

Once Barbie and Ken begin roller-blading around L.A., however, they both realize that they've essentially entered a mirror dimension. Where are the female presidents, the CEOs, the astronauts? Barbie was supposed to empower young girls to dream big, but she hasn't had the feminist effect she anticipated — and in fact, she might have made things worse. Gerwig tackles the doll's complicated legacy head on, exploring how Barbie's reputation here isn't one of leadership or creativity but of corporatized objectification. Barbie herself is horrified, facing crude comments and misogyny for the first time in her (plastic) life. But to Ken, this newfound idea of patriarchy is intoxicating, and he quickly enters a spiral of masculinity, luxuriating in trucks, cowboy hats, and the addictive thrill of power.

Gosling has already scored praise for his earnest himbo performance, and in truth, he steals the show. For an actor who's spent much of his career brooding moodily (see: Blade Runner 2049 , Drive , First Man ), here, he finally gets to tap into his inner Mouseketeer , dramatically draping himself at Barbie's feet or breaking into a shirtless power ballad called "I'm Just Ken." His Ken has very little going on inside his brain, but his heart is brimming with emotion: love and admiration for Barbie, a longing for masculine validation, and a wide-eyed curiosity about the world around him.

Robbie still remains the real star of Barbie . Physically, the blonde Australian actress already looks like she stepped out of a Mattel box (something the film itself plays on during one particular gag), but she gives an impressively transformative performance, moving her arms and joints like they're actually made of plastic. Robbie has brought a manic physicality to previous films including Babylon and Birds of Prey , but she now embraces physical comedy to the max. (At one point, she face-plants on the floor, limbs askew like a toy dropped by a toddler.) As Barbie begins to discover more about the real world, Robbie's performance gradually shifts to become more human. One of the most moving moments comes about halfway through the film, as Barbie perches quietly on a park bench, silently observing the humans around her.

If the film has a flaw, it's that Barbie and Ken are so delightful that their real-world counterparts feel dull by comparison. America Ferrera and Ariana Greenblatt play a frazzled mother and her sardonic teen daughter, who've drifted apart over time. Ferrera fills her days at her boring Mattel office job by doodling alternative Barbies, ones that are plagued by cellulite or haunted by thoughts of death. Her feminist daughter is dismissive of everything Barbie represents, dressing down Robbie with a pointed sneer. Ferrera admirably delivers one of the film's biggest emotional speeches, but surprisingly, the human characters never feel quite as lived-in as their plastic doll companions.

Still, Barbie works hard to entertain both 11-year-old girls and the parents who'll bring them to the theater. Gerwig co-wrote the script with her partner and longtime collaborator Noah Baumbach , and the entire screenplay is packed with winking one-liners, the kind that reward a rewatch. The fear is that Hollywood will learn the wrong message from Barbie, rushing to green-light films about every toy gathering dust on a kid's playroom floor. (What's next, The Funko Pop Movie? Furby: Fully Loaded? We already have a Bobbleheads movie , so maybe we're already there.) But it's Gerwig's care and attention to detail that gives Barbie an actual point of view , elevating it beyond every other cynical, IP-driven cash grab. Turns out that life in plastic really can be fantastic. Grade: A-

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• Everything you'd want to know about Barbieheimer, the summer's hottest trend
• Ryan Gosling's best Kenisms from the Barbie press tour, from #NotMyKen to calls for Kenergy research funding
• See Margot Robbie's Barbie pink carpet style and every doll-inspired look

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Barbie, oppenheimer, and life’s big existential questions, themes covered, what's inside this article.

• Barbie: Identity and purpose in an imperfect world
• Oppenheimer: A prophetic vision of hubris and destruction

Conclusion: The summer of Barbenheimer

Sources and further reading.

Are you seeing Barbie , Oppenheimer , or both? If both, then in which order? Should you watch them in one day or on successive days? These are the questions that have occupied moviegoers this summer.

It’s hard to imagine two movies more different from one another in style, content and target audience. Barbie is a bright fantasy about a childhood toy come to life. Oppenheimer is a dark biopic about the father of the atomic bomb. Perhaps it was due to these factors that studio executives scheduled both movies to open on the same weekend. After all, how likely was it that the two films would attract the same audience?

Very likely, as it turned out. The stark contrast between the two movies created a cascade of interest among moviegoers who wanted to experience both. Memes spread like nuclear wildfire across the internet and brought the portmanteau Barbenheimer into our popular lexicon. There were fan-made movie posters of Barbie standing in front of a mushroom cloud on the horizon. Rather than damaging each other’s box office potential, both films raked in revenue far exceeding what was projected.

Beyond the bottom line, Barbie and Oppenheimer also subverted the expectations of their respective (and overlapping) audiences. In wildly different ways, both movies explored questions about the brokenness of the world, what it means to live a virtuous life, and the nature and purpose of existence. No, really.

[ Spoiler alert: This article discusses themes, plot and characters from  Barbie and  Oppenheimer . If you’re planning to watch either movie and haven’t yet, you may wish to do so before reading further. ]

Barbie : Identity and purpose in an imperfect world

When the first promotions for Barbie appeared, it was assumed the movie would be a bit of summer fluff, a product tie-in aimed at young girls and their moms who had fond memories of playing with the dolls during their own childhoods.

While Barbie is indeed lighthearted over-the-top fun, it also explores some complex topics with surprising nuance. Under the guidance of writer-director Greta Gerwig, Barbie asks questions about gender roles, identity and purpose, and doesn’t always come up with the answers the audience might expect. The film accomplishes all this without ever losing its sense of humour, theatricality, or self-awareness that it’s a movie about a doll coming to life.

The first act takes place in the idyllic fantasy world of Barbieland, where all the Barbies live perfect, happy lives, unencumbered by troubling thoughts, unpleasant emotions or real-life problems. Every today is perfect, and every tomorrow will be as well. But it’s a hollow perfection, devoid of purpose or meaning. The Barbies rule Barbieland and go through the motion of its various jobs. The Kens do even less. They hang out at the beach, have no identities of their own and are mere adjuncts to the Barbies. They’re just Ken.

One day, the idyll is shattered when Stereotypical Barbie, played by Margot Robbie, begins to have thoughts about death. This existential epiphany snowballs into other problems, and pretty soon she’s off to the real world with Ken in tow, hoping to fix everything and put Barbieland back the way it was.

In the real world, Barbie discovers that men treat her with disrespect and make unwelcome sexual advances toward her, causing her to feel a pervasive sense of anxiety and fear. Meanwhile, Ken discovers patriarchy. He exports it to Barbieland where toxic masculinity takes over as the Kens party with their bros and the Barbies serve them drinks and stand around looking pretty.

With the help of a real-world mom and her daughter, Barbie manages to set things right in Barbieland, but not the way it was before. The Barbies and the Kens both come to realize that neither matriarchy nor patriarchy is a viable framework for society. Neither group should be defined as adjuncts to the other. To live authentic, purposeful lives, each one must be free to be their own person and to follow the path to which they feel called.

These are hard lessons for Stereotypical Barbie. She had always thought of herself as a perfect role model who showed girls that they could be anything they chose. But her contact with the real world has revealed that she also caused much harm by giving girls unrealistic standards of perfection. This cognitive dissonance makes her feel she no longer has purpose, although she is reassured by her fellow Barbies and newfound human friends that purpose is not tied to physical beauty or perfection. (The narrator, Helen Mirren, drily interjects that casting Margot Robbie may not have been the strongest way to make this point.) In the end, Barbie meets her creator, Ruth Handler, and becomes a real woman with a real life, embracing its uncertainties and imperfections.

Greta Gerwig has joked that Barbie is a gender-flipped retelling of the creation account in Genesis. While the parallels are neither precise nor biblically attuned, there is truth behind the joke. The movie explores the contrasts between an ideal paradise and a broken real world and leans into the contradictions between what is and what should be. Through exaggerated stereotypes, it traces the effects of the fall on the relationships between men and women. Without tying a neat bow on its story, Barbie points the way to authentic, meaningful lives for women and men who cooperate as equals, recognizing the inherent value of one another, each pursuing the purpose for which they were created.

Oppenheimer : A prophetic vision of hubris and destruction

Unlike Barbie , there were no illusions about what kind of movie Oppenheimer would be from the start. Like most of Christopher Nolan’s films, it’s deep and dark, full of symbolism and thematic ambiguity, featuring stunning visuals and sound, following a non-linear narrative style with intertwining threads that only resolve near the end of the film.

Nolan adapted his biopic from American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, a biography of theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, who led the Manhattan Project which developed the first atomic bombs during the Second World War. In Greek mythology, Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it to humanity, an act for which Zeus condemned him to eternal torment. Nolan leans into these mythical and spiritual associations, noting Oppenheimer’s quote from the Bhagavad Gita upon the first successful atomic detonation at Los Alamos: “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.” Oppenheimer had earlier named the test bomb Trinity, based on John Donne’s poem, “Batter my heart, Three Person’d God,” a line he also whispers during the test.

There’s an unmistakeable aura of prophetic allusion in Oppenheimer . The brilliant but unstable physicist sees visions and dreams dreams of fire and water, peeling flesh and charred bodies, the darkness of space and the invisible world of subatomic particles. He intuits a reality beyond our own, a realm of mystery and paradox we cannot see but which forms the building blocks of everything we know. He evangelizes with fervour, explaining to a student how electrons are both waves and particles, which is impossible but true. While flirting with a young woman, he tells her that our bodies are made of mostly space, held together by forces that make our hands feel solid – even as his hand touches hers.

Oppenheimer is a deeply flawed man, full of apparent contractions and paradoxes much like the subatomic realm he studies. He’s self-absorbed and disconnected, with little interest in raising his own children. By turns, he can be arrogant or self-effacing. His genius is coupled with naivete, and he often displays a shocking lack of common sense. Although he grasps theoretical ideas that very few can begin to fathom, he has little time or talent for practical work. Even so, he recognizes his limitations; he and the film often repeat the mantra, “Theory will only take you so far.”

This truth becomes a bitter pill once the practical realities of Oppenheimer’s work begin to settle in. It’s one thing to be driven by ambition and achievement and a desire to peer into the mysteries of the universe. It’s quite another to witness the spectacle of a thousand-foot pillar of roaring atomic fire reach to the sky. The awful power he has unleashed on the world, which he thinks of as fire from God, fills Oppenheimer with guilt and remorse. He finds himself arguing that the weapon be held in reserve as a deterrent, but also that it be used to demonstrate its power and force an end to the war.

Once the bombs are dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Oppenheimer is ensnared ever deeper in a web of conflicting moral convictions. Were the bombings justified? At what point does the cost in lives and human suffering become too high? Oppenheimer can’t answer those questions in a way that will assuage his conscience. After the war, he tries to limit nuclear proliferation and prevent an arms race, which costs him his job and reputation and makes him the target of a political witch hunt as an alleged communist sympathizer.

Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer can be viewed as a story of hubris along the lines of Greek tragedy, a cautionary tale of a promethean scientist stealing from the gods and paying a terrible price. From a biblical perspective, Oppenheimer may be seen as a man gifted by God to unlock the secrets of his creation for potential benefit to humanity. However, the motives of powerful people, together with his own ambitions, turned his discoveries to dark ends whose shockwaves continue to reverberate into the present. “It’s not a new weapon,” Danish physicist Niels Bohr tells Oppenheimer. “It’s a new world.”

During the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, some of the physicists feared that the detonation of a nuclear device could cause a chain reaction that would set fire to earth’s atmosphere and destroy the world. Near the end of the movie, Oppenheimer claims with apocalyptic gloom that this has in fact happened, only in a manner no one had anticipated.

Like the wave-particle duality of quantum mechanics, the Barbenheimer phenomenon is hard to explain. Had the two movies, Barbie and Oppenheimer , opened on different weekends, both might have passed unremarked, viewed only by the target audiences at which they were aimed. But as they came into proximity with each other, like oppositely charged particles they fused into a pop cultural experience unlikely to be replicated.

The two films fed off each other’s success to create a moviegoing whole greater than the sum of its two halves. Beside treating their audiences to a pair of highly distinctive cinematic styles, Barbie and Oppenheimer tackled some complicated, paradoxical questions about identity, purpose, the nature of the world and the mystery of existence. Although they approached these questions from polar opposite directions, both movies treated them with surprising nuance, while never failing to entertain.

For Christian moviegoers, the Barbenheimer phenomenon offers us the opportunity for fruitful discussion with those who share our faith and with those who don’t. It’s a rare pop cultural moment in which we can give anyone who asks us a defense of the reason for the hope we have in us, and show them that the answers to their deepest existential longings are satisfied only in Christ.

[ Note: This article does not constitute an endorsement of the movies  Barbie and  Oppenheimer by Focus on the Family Canada. Consult the full reviews at  Plugged In  to help you determine whether  Barbie and  Oppenheimer   are appropriate for you or your family. ]

Hannah Anderson, “ Barbie and Ken go east of Eden ,” Christianity Today , July 27, 2023.

Beth Card, “ Barbie: A film that asks the questions only Christ can truly answer ,” Premier Christianity , July 24, 2023.

LuElla D’Amico, “ The Barbie movie and contemporary feminism’s likability factor ,” Christ and Pop Culture , August 7, 2023.

JR. Forasteros, “ The question of sin at the heart of ‘Barbie’ and ‘Oppenheimer’ ,” Sojourners , July 26, 2023.

Giles Gough, “ Oppenheimer: A complicated moral conundrum with no easy answers ,” Premier Christianity , July 28, 2023.

Roslyn Hernández, “ Barbie and our reason for being ,” Think Christian , July 31, 2023.

D. Marquel, “ Oppenheimer and our appetite for destruction ,” Think Christian , July 24, 2023.

Jen Oshman, “ Christians should welcome the conversations ‘Barbie’ sparks ,” The Gospel Coalition , August 7, 2023.

Todd C. Ream and Willem P. Van De Merwe, “ J. Robert Oppenheimer: An autopsy of the American academic vocation ,” Christian Scholar’s Review , July 17, 2023.

Austin Smith, Chelsea Sentell and Jessica Martin, “ Barbie and Oppenheimer walk into a theater: Barbenheimer and the culture of comedic nihilism ,” Christian Scholar’s Review , July 28, 2023.

Alissa Wilkinson, “ In the beginning, there was Barbie ,” Vox , July 20, 2023.

Alissa Wilkinson, “ Oppenheimer is an audacious inquiry into power, in all its forms ,” Vox , July 20, 2023.

Subby Szterszky is the managing editor of Focus on Faith and Culture, an e-newsletter produced by Focus on the Family Canada.

© 2023 Focus on the Family (Canada) Association. All rights reserved.

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‘Barbie’ Has a PG-13 Rating—Is It Appropriate for Younger Kids?

Why I have no problem taking my 8-year-old daughter to see the movie—plus all the information you need to decide if it's right for your family.

Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures

The long-awaited Barbie movie is here. My social media feeds are filled with the vintage Barbie looks Margot Robbie has been nailing on the red carpet, love letters to Barbie from all generations, hilarious memes, and, most of all, raging debates among parents asking, ”Is ‘Barbie’ appropriate for kids?”

I know, it sounds a little counterintuitive considering that every little girl in America was patiently awaiting opening day. But if you haven't heard, the Motion Picture Association actually gave Barbie, Ken, and the gang a PG-13 rating!

It never once crossed my mind that perhaps Barbie might be inappropriate for my 8-year-old daughter. First of all, the movie is being marketed to girls well under 13. There’s an entire line of Barbie dolls and accessories in the toy aisle, not to mention Barbiecore clothes and accessories in the children’s section (PS: we own most of it).

It was never going to fly if I told my daughter she could have a “Margot Robbie” Barbie and a “Ryan Gosling” Ken doll but had to wait five years to see the movie. I’d love to think my daughter will want a Barbie-themed bat mitzvah but it’s rather unlikely.  

Second of all, I really and truly don’t think my daughter and her friends will pay a bit of attention to the movie’s dialogue. They only care about watching their beloved dolls come alive as they soak in larger-than-life Dream Houses, Barbie’s over-the-top wardrobe, and a movie set that is SO pink , it caused a global shortage of pink paint .

It's not giving anything away because it's in the trailer, but one scene features a moment where Ken suggests sleeping over at Barbie’s house. Barbie innocently replies, “To do what?” My daughter laughed when she saw the trailer but never asked for more details. But if she did ask, I would’ve delicately explained those dynamics.

It’s inevitable that Barbie may bring up questions about romantic relationships, feminism , and even death (there’s a scene where Barbie brings a dance party to a screeching halt by asking, “Do you ever think about dying”?). I’m not worried. In fact, I’m happy to use the movie as a jumping-off point to answer questions, broach sensitive subjects and start a healthy dialogue.

I took my daughter to see Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret —another PG-13 movie sans the distraction of a glossy set and wardrobe. Based on the famed and beloved Judy Blume novel, the movie touched on puberty, religion, family issues , and more.

A few days after seeing Are You There God, It’s Me, Margaret in theaters, my daughter asked—while we were in a long line at Target—what it was like when I got my first period . Maybe it wasn’t quite the setting I was hoping to have such a chat with her, but we had a really beautiful and honest conversation that I believe my daughter was able to grasp because of the foundation laid out by the movie. So if anything beyond “Which Barbie is your favorite” is asked after we see the movie—I’m prepared!

With that said, taking a younger child to see Barbie is a personal decision. The movie received its PG-13 rating because of “suggestive references” and “brief language.”  Some parents may not be ready or comfortable to discuss the more advanced plot lines while others may simply just know if their child is or is not ready to be introduced to mature topics.

It’s worth noting in the film, Barbieland features a diverse group of Barbies and Kens with a range of body sizes, disabilities , and racial and ethnic backgrounds . But, if you’re still unsure—here’s what you need to know so you can make an informed decision before buying tickets to Barbie for your family. 

Sexual Innuendos

Barbie and Ken have been “couple goals” for decades. Raise your hand if you’ve been “witness” to hundreds of weddings for the celebrated couple in your playroom! But much of the innocence of their relationship likely has to do with one important detail—both Barbie and Ken are missing their private parts. It’s a fact that is acknowledged in the Barbie movie though they make reference to their missing genitalia in a humorous way. It’s not explicit or vulgar and there’s nothing that resembles nudity. At one point the words "vagina" and "penis" are used.

There is also that reference mentioned earlier when Ken asks Barbie to stay the night, but he doesn't know what that really means. Ken does try to kiss Barbie more than once. There are also some pick-up lines, cat-calling, and other double entendres that you may get that your kids may not. Oh, and the Kens do have plenty of scenes when they are shirtless.

Mature Language and Themes

It should be noted that Barbie is directed by Greta Gerwig whose body of work includes directing movies with strong leading ladies and coming-of-age themes such as Ladybird and Little Women . So Gerwig’s take on Barbie focuses on gender roles and equality, what it means to be a woman, finding happiness, and fulfillment, and even touches on death as Barbie has a bit of an existential crisis.

Yes, there is some “strong” language used but the one word that would really require some “earmuffs” is actually bleeped out. There is no other profanity. There is some beer-drinking in some scenes as well.

While these topics are broached with sensitivity, care, and humor, they are definitely geared toward the older audiences (hello Gen X) watching for the nostalgia of it all.

Mild Violence

And by mild violence, we mean barely any that is a real cause for concern. There’s a battle among the Kens that is “cartoony” at best— most kids have likely seen worse in Disney movies. Their weapons include inflatable pool toys and they get the most aggressive in a dance-off. There is also a car chase scene, but again, nothing that's a real cause for concern.

If you're still unsure or do take your younger child but want to be prepared with conversation starters after seeing Barbie , Common Sense Media has some great ideas to get you started. The organization is known for its reviews and ratings of TV shows and movies based on children's age and appropriateness. In the review of Barbie , the group includes talking points that you can bring up with your child.

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• <i>Barbie</i> Is Very Pretty But Not Very Deep

Barbie Is Very Pretty But Not Very Deep

T he fallacy of Barbie the doll is that she’s supposed to be both the woman you want to be and your friend, a molded chunk of plastic—in a brocade evening dress, or a doctor’s outfit, or even Jane Goodall’s hyper-practical safari suit—which is also supposed to inspire affection. But when you’re a child, your future self is not a friend—she’s too amorphous for that, and a little too scary. And you may have affection, or any number of conflicted feelings, for your Barbie, but the truth is that she’s always living in the moment, her moment, while you’re trying to dream your own future into being. Her zig-zagging signals aren’t a problem—they’re the whole point. She’s always a little ahead of you, which is why some love her, others hate her, and many, many fall somewhere in the vast and complex in-between.

With Barbie the movie —starring Margot Robbie, also a producer on the film—director Greta Gerwig strives to mine the complexity of Barbie the doll, while also keeping everything clever and fun, with a hot-pink exclamation point added where necessary. There are inside jokes, riffs on Gene Kelly-style choreography, and many, many one-line zingers or extended soliloquies about modern womanhood—observations about all that’s expected of us, how exhausting it all is, how impossible it is to ever measure up. Gerwig has done a great deal of advance press about the movie, assuring us that even though it’s about a plastic toy, it’s still stuffed with lots of ideas and thought and real feelings. (She and Noah Baumbach co-wrote the script.) For months now there has been loads of online chatter about how “subversive” the movie is—how it loves Barbie but also mocks her slightly, and how it makes fun of Mattel executives even though their real-life counterparts are both bankrolling the whole enterprise and hoping to make a huge profit off it. The narrative is that Gerwig has somehow pulled off a coup, by taking Mattel’s money but using it to create real art , or at least just very smart entertainment.

Read More: Our Cover Story on Barbie

It’s true that Barbie does many of the things we’ve been promised: there is much mocking and loving of Barbie, and plenty of skewering of the suits. But none of those things make it subversive. Instead, it’s a movie that’s enormously pleased with itself, one that has cut a big slice of perfectly molded plastic cake and eaten it—or pretend-eaten it—too. The things that are good about Barbie — Robbie’s buoyant, charming performance and Ryan Gosling’s go-for-broke turn as perennial boyfriend Ken, as well as the gorgeous, inventive production design—end up being steamrollered by all the things this movie is trying so hard to be. Its playfulness is the arch kind. Barbie never lets us forget how clever it’s being, every exhausting minute.

That’s a shame, because the first half-hour or so is dazzling and often genuinely funny, a vision that’s something close to (though not nearly as weird as) the committed act of imagination Robert Altman pulled off with his marvelous Popeye. First, there’s a prologue, narrated by Helen Mirren and riffing on Stanley Kubrick’s 2001, explaining the impact of early Barbie on little girls in 1959; she was an exotic and aspirational replacement for their boring old baby dolls, whose job was to train them for motherhood—Gerwig shows these little girls on a rocky beach, dashing their baby dolls to bits after they’ve seen the curvy miracle that is Barbie. Then Gerwig, production designer Sarah Greenwood, and costume designer Jacqueline Durran launch us right into Barbieland, with Robbie’s approachably glam Barbie walking us through . This is an idyllic community where all the Dream Houses are open, not only because its denizens have no shame and nothing to hide, but because homes without walls mean they can greet one another each day with the sunrise. “Hello, Barbie!” they call out cheerfully. Everyone in Barbieland—except the ill-fated pregnant Midge , based on one of Mattel’s many discontinued experiments in toy marketing—is named Barbie, and everyone has a meaningful job. There are astronaut Barbies and airline pilot Barbies, as well as an all-Barbie Supreme Court. Garbage-collector Barbies, in matching pink jumpsuits, bustle cheerfully along this hamlet’s perpetually pristine curbs. This array of Barbies is played by a selection of actors including Hari Nef, Dua Lipa, Alexandra Shipp, and Emma Mackey. The president is also Barbie—she’s played by Issa Rae. (In one of the early section’s great sight gags, she brushes her long, silky tresses with an overscale oval brush.)

Barbieland is a world where all the Barbies love and support one another , like a playtime version of the old-fashioned women’s college, where the students thrive because there are no men to derail their self-esteem. Robbie’s Barbie—she is known, as a way of differentiating herself from the others, as Stereotypical Barbie, because she is white and has the perfectly sculpted proportions and sunny smile of the Barbie many of us grew up with—is the center of it all. She awakens each morning and throws off her sparkly pink coverlet, her hair a swirl of perfectly curled Saran. She chooses an outfit (with meticulously coordinated accessories) from her enviable wardrobe. Her breakfast is a molded waffle that pops from the toaster unbidden; when she “drinks” from a cup of milk, it’s only pretend-drinking, because where is that liquid going to go? This becomes a recurring gag in the movie, wearing itself out slowly, but it’s delightful at first, particularly because Robbie is so game for all of it. Her eyes sparkle in that vaguely crazed Barbie-like way; her smile has a painted-on quality, but there’s warmth there, too. She steps into this role as lightly as if it were a chevron-striped one piece tailored precisely to her talents.

Barbie also has a boyfriend, one Ken of many Kens. The Kens are played by actors including Kingsley Ben-Adir and Simu Liu. But Gosling’s Ken is the best of them, stalwart, in a somewhat neutered way, with his shaggy blond hair, spray-tan bare chest, and vaguely pink lips. The Kens have no real job, other than one known as “Beach,” which involves, as you might guess, going to the beach. The Kens are generally not wanted at the Barbies’ ubiquitous dance parties—the Barbies generally prefer the company of themselves. And that’s why the Kens’ existence revolves around the Barbies . As Mirren the narrator tells us, Barbie always has a great day. “But Ken has a great day only if Barbie looks at him.” And the moment Robbie does, Gosling’s face becomes the visual equivalent of a dream Christmas morning, alight with joy and wonder.

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You couldn’t, of course, have a whole movie set in this highly artificial world. You need to have a plot, and some tension. And it’s when Gerwig airlifts us out of Barbieland and plunks us down in the real world that the movie’s problems begin. Barbie awakens one morning realizing that suddenly, nothing is right. Her hair is messy on the pillow; her waffle is shriveled and burnt. She has begun to have unbidden thoughts about death. Worst of all, her perfectly arched feet have gone flat. (The other Barbies retch in horror at the sight.) For advice, she visits the local wise woman, also known as Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon), the Barbie who’s been “played with too hard,” as evidenced by the telltale scribbles on her face. Weird Barbie tells Robbie’s confused and forlorn Barbie that her Barbieland troubles are connected to something that’s going on out there in the Real World, a point of stress that turns out to involve a Barbie-loving mom, Gloria (America Ferrera), and her preteen daughter, Sasha (Ariana Greenblatt), who are growing apart. Barbie makes the journey to the Real World, reluctantly allowing Ken to accompany her. There, he’s wowed to learn that men make all the money and basically rule the land. While Barbie becomes more and more involved in the complexity of human problems , Ken educates himself on the wonders of the patriarchy and brings his newfound ideas back to empower the Kens, who threaten to take over the former utopia known as Barbieland.

By this point, Barbie has begun to do a lot more telling and a lot less showing; its themes are presented like flat-lays of Barbie outfits , delivered in lines of dialogue that are supposed to be profound but come off as lifeless. There are still some funny gags—a line about the Kens trying to win over the Barbies by playing their guitars “at” them made me snort. But the good jokes are drowned out by the many self-aware ones, like the way the Mattel executives, all men (the head boob is Will Ferrell), sit around a conference table and strategize ways to make more money off selling their idea of “female agency.”

The question we’re supposed to ask, as our jaws hang open, is “How did the Mattel pooh-bahs let these jokes through?” But those real-life execs, counting their doubloons in advance, know that showing what good sports they are will help rather than hinder them. They’re on team Barbie, after all! And they already have a long list of toy-and-movie tie-ins on the drawing board.

Meanwhile, we’re left with Barbie the movie, a mosaic of many shiny bits of cleverness with not that much to say. In the pre-release interviews they’ve given, Gerwig and Robbie have insisted their movie is smart about Barbie and what she means to women, even as Mattel executives have said they don’t see the film as being particularly feminist. And all parties have insisted that Barbie is for everyone.

Barbie probably is a feminist movie, but only in the most scattershot way. The plot hinges on Barbie leaving her fake world behind and, like Pinocchio and the Velveteen Rabbit before her, becoming “real.” Somehow this is an improvement on her old existence, but how can we be sure? The movie’s capstone is a montage of vintagey-looking home movies (Gerwig culled this footage from Barbie ’s cast and crew), a blur of joyful childhood moments and parents showing warmth and love. Is this the soon-to-be-real Barbie’s future, or are these the doll-Barbie’s memories? It’s impossible to tell. By this point, we’re supposed to be suitably immersed in the bath of warm, girls-can-do-anything fuzzies the movie is offering us. Those bold, bored little girls we saw at the very beginning of the film, dashing their baby dolls against the rocks, are nowhere in sight. In this Barbieland, their unruly desires are now just an inconvenience.

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Barbie (2023) Parent Guide

Creating a witty, campy, original film about plastic dolls is a genuine achievement..

Theaters: When Barbie's perfect life is rocked by unexplained phenomena, she and Ken go on a trip to the real world to save Barbie Land.

Release date July 21, 2023

Run Time: 114 minutes

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The guide to our grades, parent movie review by kirsten hawkes.

Barbie (Margot Robbie) is living her dream life in her bright pink dream house. She enjoys non-stop validation and entertainment in a world where her fellow Barbies can achieve anything – winning Nobel prizes, flying into space, or being President. Secure in the conviction that the success of Barbies inspires girls in the far-off “real” world, she’s able to party enthusiastically with Ken (Ryan Gosling) and her friends, at least, until she has sudden, irrepressible thoughts of death.

That’s not all. The next morning, Barbie wakes up with (horror of horrors) flat feet and is unable to drift down the levels of her stairless house. After she lands with a thud on the sidewalk, our protagonist visits Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon) to uncover the cause of these disturbing phenomena. She learns that her answers can only be found in the real world, so she hops into her convertible to save Barbie Land. Unable to exist outside Barbie’s gaze, Ken insists on coming along, but their experiences in Los Angeles have dire consequences for their pink, plastic reality…

When Barbie arrives in LA, she discovers that not only do women not enjoy the female successes found in Barbie Land; some of them resent Barbie and her fellow dolls for fostering unreasonable expectations. Barbie is horrified to encounter both misogyny and patriarchy – but these attitudes give Ken a sense of visibility and respect. This cognitive divergence drives the rest of the plot and leads to an existential crisis for both characters and their entire community.

Jaded critic that I am, it’s not often that I get excited about a film, but I want to give two big thumbs-up to Greta Gerwig for co-writing and directing a movie that kept me guessing for its entire runtime. I honestly did not know how this movie was going to end, and that’s such a refreshing change. The script is also laugh-out-loud funny – Depression Barbie binge-watching Pride & Prejudice was a particularly rich moment for me, but theatergoers at my showing burst into laughter at frequent intervals.

There’s no doubt this film has been written for adult audiences (particularly women) but it can also be enjoyed by teens. Negative content is limited to minor innuendo, infrequent profanity, and some farcical violence. This is more than balanced by the movie’s positive themes. Barbie doesn’t just dissect the harms of structural misogyny; it drives home a strong message of female empowerment. When disillusioned Barbie moans that she’s “not smart enough to be interesting”, real world mom Gloria (America Ferrera) delivers an impassioned plea for female self-acceptance in a culture of unattainable, often contradictory expectations.

More impressively, this isn’t just a film about female disempowerment or rage. The script has the courage to look at the Kens and the consequences of ongoing marginalization, even when it results from cluelessness instead of malicious intent. As Barbie and Ken look beyond social constructs and examine their own interests and priorities, the movie becomes a tale of self-acceptance and maturation. Barbie is more than an advertorial for a child’s plaything: it’s a parable about individual agency. And stories don’t get much deeper than that.

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Kirsten hawkes, watch the trailer for barbie (2023).

Barbie (2023) Rating & Content Info

Why is Barbie (2023) rated PG-13? Barbie (2023) is rated PG-13 by the MPAA for suggestive references and brief language.

Violence: There are chase scenes involving reckless driving. There are scenes of physical fighting involving hitting, kicking, and shoving. Male characters have a “war” in which sports equipment is used in place of weapons. A man is put in a headlock with the handle of a shovel. A woman punches a man for slapping her backside. A man hits himself hard enough to fall over. Sexual Content: There is a coded reference to masturbation. Doll characters reference the “blobs” inside the male dolls’ jeans. There is some mild sexual innuendo. A main character refers to a “penis” and “vagina” and says that they don’t have any genitals. A man slaps a woman’s backside. A doll “grows” breasts when her arm is turned in circles. Song lyrics bemoan a character’s permanent state of virginity. Profanity:   A sexual expletive is bleeped out. There are a half dozen terms of deity and minor profanities. Alcohol / Drug Use: None noted.

Page last updated July 20, 2023

Barbie (2023) Parents' Guide

What effect does Barbie and Ken’s relationship have on the rest of the film? What does their relationship say about power differentials? How does that influence the way Ken reacts to his experience in the real world? How do you think Barbie can remain unaware of Ken’s feelings? What does their relationship say about real-life relationships?

What do you think of Barbie’s choice at the end of the movie? Would you make the same decision? Why or why not?

Related home video titles:

If you’re looking for a teen-friendly story of female empowerment, you can try Moxie . This Netflix production tells the story of a teen who launches an anonymous zine to protest the sexualized misogyny prevalent in her high school.

In Misbehaviour , a group of British feminists plan a protest against the 1970 Miss World beauty pageant to highlight the misogyny of their culture.

Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s long climb to the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States is depicted in On the Basis of Sex .

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Is the New "Barbie" Movie Appropriate For Kids? Here's What Parents Should Know

Updated on 9/13/2023 at 1:25 PM

Barbie, the beloved childhood icon, has been given a live-action makeover in a new movie that's unlike the Barbie stories of the past. Instead, the doll we grew up with comes to life in a brand-new cinematic adventure directed by Greta Gerwig , starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling as Barbie and Ken.

Barbie (the doll) is fit for all ages. But is the new "Barbie" movie appropriate for kids? Here's what you should know about the "Barbie" movie plot and how the movie, which is now in theaters and newly streaming on Prime Video , is faring among parents and experts. This way, you can make an informed decision before you take the kids to the theater or let them watch from home.

How Long Is the New "Barbie" Movie?

"Barbie" runs for one hour and 54 minutes, according to IMDb , or 114 minutes. That alone is a sign that this movie isn't geared toward little ones. Kids' movies tend to be shorter, no more than 100 minutes, to accommodate their shorter attention spans.

What Is the "Barbie" Movie Rated?

The "Barbie" movie is rated PG-13, which means (literally): "Parental Guidance: some material may be inappropriate for children under 13." It's meant to be a strong caution for parents to consider when deciding whether to let their kids see a movie. For "Barbie" specifically, the movie has been rated PG-13 due to "suggestive references" and "brief language."

Is the "Barbie" Movie Appropriate For Kids?

One of the biggest differences between the new movie and earlier Barbie movies like "Barbie and the Secret Door," "The Princess & the Popstar," and "A Fashion Fairytale" is that Gerwig's "Barbie" is not animated. These are real people.

And unlike live-action remakes of kids' films like "The Little Mermaid," which retain the animated original's themes and sense of fantasy, "Barbie" depicts characters in real-world situations, dealing with real-world problems — the characters grapple with dating, aging, beauty standards, and harassment. The plot is centered on Barbie's existential crisis, which is a pretty heavy topic in and of itself.

All this to say, the plot is more adult than Barbie movies of the past. It includes playful humor that might appeal to all audiences, but this movie is geared toward a more grown-up audience.

From the trailer alone, we see Barbie getting her butt slapped on the beach, punching a man in the face, and appearing to get arrested with Ken.

IMDb reports that the movie contains several sexual innuendos and references to the characters' (lack of) genitals. "One scene shows Ken asking Barbie if he can stay over as they're 'girlfriend and boyfriend.' When Barbie asks 'to do what?' Ken pauses before saying 'I'm actually not sure,'" Danny Brogan, executive editor at Common Sense Media, told Yahoo! Life .

It's a line that may go over kids' heads — but that also means that, at the end of the day, the movie may not be particularly funny or interesting to them.

There's also some violence (but nothing overly frightening; no blood, gore, or any weapons are used) and some mild risqué language, including one bleeped-out use of the mf-word. The movie also has some more grown-up jokes (like a joke that centers on the word "beach" and jokes about beauty standards and the patriarchy). However, like the joke about being boyfriend/girlfriend, these jokes are very likely to go over the head of someone who is younger without leaving any holes in the plotline.

"I think Gerwig has included all this mature content knowing that a large portion of the audience will be millennials and members of Generation Z — people who grew up with Barbie during the '80s, '90s, and '00s — looking for that nostalgia but also to be entertained," Brogan told Yahoo! Life.

Personally, I went to see the movie with my 16-year-old, and I felt it was perfectly appropriate for her in terms of the message of the movie and the jokes. She was old enough to understand the storyline's humor, nostalgia, and positive messages. I wouldn't hesitate to allow my 14-year-old to watch the movie, either. However, I would have pause in allowing my 9-year-old to watch the movie, but only because I don't think they would find it interesting, and the jokes would go above their head.

With that info in mind, the PG-13 rating seems accurate — this isn't a movie for tweens and younger, not necessarily because of the content, but because much of it might be over their heads and not as entertaining.

How Do You Know If Your Kid Is Ready to See the "Barbie" Movie?

Dr. Amanda Gummer , child psychologist, parenting expert, and founder of The Good Play Guide, tells POPSUGAR that parents should consider what other movies their kids have seen and look at the marketing material of the "Barbie" movie to get a feel for if it's appropriate for their kid. "A good place to start is to consider how your child has reacted to other similarly rated films," Dr. Gummer says. "Past experiences are great to consider their readiness for PG-13 content."

She continues, "Have a look at the pre-marketing materials and trailers and think about the different themes, language, potential violence levels, and sexual content [that] might appear. Think about what your child likes to do or watch and what they are already exposed to, as some children can be more sensitive to certain topics than others."

Dr. Gummer also suggests watching the movie together with your kid, so you can talk about what you saw after the film. "If you decide your child is ready to watch, then why not watch it together and allocate some time after to grab a milkshake and chat about what you've seen?" she suggests. "This allows you to provide context, answer questions, and have fun talking things through."

The movie does cover some big topics like feminism, beauty standards, body image, harassment, and patriarchy, which might be heavy for some younger teens, or they can be a good jumping-off point for important conversations. "Why not start a conversation about beauty standards and talk about how different standards can influence a person's self-esteem and body image and how harassment is unacceptable and can hurt others?" Dr. Gummer suggests. "The 'Barbie' movie and its inclusive and positive positioning is a wonderful springboard to have discussions around a supportive environment. The film covers topics such as friendship, openness, and inclusivity, so it's a great springboard to start conversations with your children and promote healthy values."

Dr. Gummer says she's "excited" about the movie hitting the big screens because it allows parents to talk to preteens and teens about important topics. "For me, it represents a positive move that can serve as a great role model for older children, as it provides essential values and encourages conversation around different themes," she says. "Through the diverse range of personalities and characters in the movie, there is a great opportunity to discuss inclusivity, acceptance, and the value of individuality — all really important topics today and helpful as children understand and appreciate the differences in others."

Ultimately, you know your kid best. If you have checked out the plotline and read some reviews and are still not sure if now is the right time for your kid to see "Barbie," stick to one of the animated stories instead. The live-action movie will always be there in a few months or years when the timing is right.

"Barbie" opened in theaters nationwide on July 21.

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Reviewed by: Jim O'Neill CONTRIBUTOR

Story based on the Mattel toy doll

Woke messaging in films

A feminist critique of capitalism

Barbie having an existential crisis

Films that appear to be for youngsters, but are NOT

Transgenderism promotion by Hollywood

Hollywood leftist deconstruction of ‘gender roles’ and increasing man bashing in movies

Feminism’s sexist anti-man messaging—painting masculinity as toxic and predatory / males as idiots, bigots or pathetic losers

Is the FEMINIST MOVEMENT the right answer to the mistreatment that some women endure in this sinful world? Answer

Social satire

Films that attempt to contrast fantasy and dark reality

G reta Gerwig’s “Barbie” has a cotton candy wispiness that would be fine for a movie about a doll that comes to life, but behind the pink frosting facade, Gerwig has spun candy that is hard—and sour.

Gerwig, and her partner, Noah Baumbach , who co-wrote the script, might appear to be apt choices to make a film about the odd person out trying to catch a break on the inside while still maintaining the quirkiness of an appealing outsider. Gerwig’s performances as an actress in Whit Stillman’s “Damsels in Distress” and Baumbach’s “Frances Ha” were iconoclastic and daringly funny. Her insouciant embodiments of “innocent as doves” but secretly “wise as serpents” space-cadets in the mold of Zasu Pitts, Billie Burke and Judy Holliday, were a breath of fresh air.

As a director, however, Gerwig’s focus and tone have become stale, dour and accusatory. The wrathful “ Lady Bird ” and the unfaithful (literally and scripturally) “ Little Women ” were both successes, taking her from “low-budget indie” wannabe to well-healed Hollywood A-lister. As such, she not only abides by the rules of the realm, but has become one of its most reliable and outspoken voices.

With “Barbie,” Gerwig does everything bigger, bolder and louder. There is no soft underbelly to this doll. The film is pepper-sprayed with bursts such as: “either you’re brainwashed or you’re weird and ugly; there’s no in-between,” and my favorite, spoken to Barbie by a teenage student (a re-run of the “Lady Bird” speech shouted by that film’s title character to a conservative religious woman, a favorite Gerwig target): “You represent everything wrong with our culture… you destroyed the planet… you set feminism back,” and so on, concluding her “j’accuse” diatribe by calling Barbie “a fascist.” That kind of red-faced hectoring never lets up. Too often I felt as though I was sitting through a “Libs of TikTok” marathon .

The movie’s plot is a terse throw-away. The main doll, “Stereotypical Barbie” ( Margot Robbie ) lives in a fantasy world called Barbieland with all kinds of other Barbies who live in dream houses and drive dream cars. It is a feminist , but peculiarly unfeminine, environment in which the president is a woman, all nine Supreme Court justices are women, health care is provided by women, and businesses are run by women. The men, labeled “superfluous” citizens, are not even relegated to the sidelines; they have no place on the field at all.

A crack develops in Barbieland allowing Barbie to travel from fantasy land to the real world, a contrived plot device and a cheap “Matrix” rip-off, the first of many such “borrowings” from or references to earlier classic films, ironically ones made by decidedly non-feminist, macho filmmakers such as Stanley Kubrick, Francis Ford Coppola and, astonishingly, Robert Evans.

Each Barbie in Barbieland may have a plastic doll counterpart in the real world. Evidently, whatever happens to the doll and her owner in that realm has a concomitant effect on the Barbieland inhabitant. When the main Barbie starts developing human maladies such as flat feet and a bit of cellulite, she does not consult a Barbieland podiatrist or luposucionist (both of whom one would suspect in a perfect Barbie world would be crackerjack practitioners of their specialties), but instead travels to the real world (yes, in a pink Cadillac, pink motorboat, and pinkish rocket ship) to find the little girl whose dark thoughts has brought on her distress. Little does she know that her existential trip, for a doll, will lead her to fall into the clutches of the dark and male infested hands of the toy company that makes her, Mattel.

The Mattel conglomerate is located in Los Angeles, and traveling from one LaLa land to another could be fodder for some good jokes about how real and imaginary places may not be so different (remember the Star Trek movie scenario of the Enterprise landing in San Francisco, a place weirder than any extraterrestrial sphere could be?), but that nerve is never touched. Gerwig and Baumbach do know what side their bread is buttered on. There’s nothing new brought to this battlefield, even with Will Ferrell playing Will Ferrell playing a Ken-like dodo playing a past-his-prime jerk.

With each new performance, Ferrell is morphing into an A.I. version of himself, but in this case he sputters lines that an A.I. program, or even a Barbieland doll, would roll their eyes at.

In the real world, Stereotypical Barbie is absconded by secret service like Mattel minions while a befuddled Ken debates whether to rescue her or seek help. You may have already guessed that the film does not miss the opportunity to further emasculate Ken as he chooses to run back to Barbieland for help. Adding further insult to injury, he never returns for her either.

Meanwhile, Ferrell and his boardroom cohorts, all men in dark suits, prove to be easy, cookie-cutter targets. The strongest corporate retort to Barbie’s criticisms of their non-inclusiveness and all around non-niceness is a timid: “Some of my best friends are Jewish.”

This from Hollywood’s A-list original screenplay team?

Gerwig’s Barbie does not grow into a flesh and blood girl in the same way Pinocchio evolved into a boy through humility and self-sacrifice. She is inordinately cruel to Ken and seems to have a cold core, one that Margot Robbie sometimes brings to the surface, channeling the murderous character she played in the “ Suicide Squad ” movies, and giving her doll an edge that is sharp, if at times a bit rusty. Robbie has an inviting and generous smile which Quentin Tarantino used to enchanting effect in “ Once Upon a Time in Hollywood ,” but she can turn that smile to something sinister and deadly, as she did in the underrated “ Mary, Queen of Scots ,” in which she used her grin as a mask to soften, or conceal, the human monster, and political genius, that was Queen Elizabeth I. In “Barbie,” Robbie can’t seem to get the balance right. She holds onto the Mattel plastic while keeping the vulnerable humanity at bay.

The film begins with Barbie, standing as a tall bathing-suit clad monolith surrounded by a bevy of very young girls who defiantly smash and toss away their baby dolls. It’s not just a cheesy rendition of Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” opening where the apes bang bones they learned to use as weapons, but a cold and cynical cry for emancipation from the binds of what motherhood, and traditional womanhood, represent to the modern Hollywood sensibility.

As the movie unfolds, its makers herald the positives of such liberation, but shy away from its downsides. Barbie nonetheless develops a crisis of confidence, and then one of existence itself. Her anxiety is deep, the result we’re told, of patriarchal oppression, leading Barbie to have “irrepressible thoughts of death.”

When a tale starts, not with life as the Genesis story does, but with death, and that is what the baby destroying scene represents, it is fated to come full circle. Barbie’s “irrepressible thoughts” are about more than chauvinism. Those thoughts cry out for redemption and rebirth.

Despite her eschatological concerns, this living doll has no spiritual dismay and no sense of what she was created for. Does she look to Someone who, before she was formed, knew her? Her self-reliance, cynically referred to as empowerment, blinds her to seeing that “all things in heaven and earth, the visible and the invisible…were created through Him and for Him.” Barbie jumps from battle to battle, emulating the Director’s own personal fight for the rights of marginalized women everywhere, but by never putting on “the shield of Christ ,” she is ultimately unequipped to “fight the good fight.” No wonder she and her real world counterpart have thoughts of despair and death.

Did I mention those thoughts are applauded by film’s end?

You know a movie’s script and production are weak when so much depends on a bevy of supporting and cameo appearances by underused, underwritten, or just miscast performers such as America Ferrera , Michael Cera , Issa Rae , Rhea Perlman , and John Cena who seem mostly befuddled by the polemic drivel they have to speak.

Helen Mirren is inexplicably and shamefully used as a narrator trying to elucidate the film’s mangled background story. Her commentary only makes this hapless doll world murkier and more punishing, declaring that playing with dolls might be fun, but ultimately harms little girls everywhere. Her voice, meant to be authoritative and instructive, is actually authoritarian and beguiling, like that of a matronly garden serpent.

Almost all the performances are amateurish and attention-seeking in the worst way, none more so than Kate McKinnon’s whose lack of comic skill is hidden behind by a tremendous well of self-regard. She plays “Weird Barbie”, not in a knowing and endearing sidekick-style in the vein of Eve Arden or Joan Cusack , but in a shrill and geyser-like fashion that is as jarring as her costume and inconsistent make-up.

There are several Kens, each different looking, but each behaving in basically the same way. Ryan Gosling plays the main Ken, and he almost brings it off. While watching him in all his tanned and bleached splendor, I wondered if his entire performance was nothing more than attempt to humor his director and co-star. He constantly tosses off his ridiculous costumes in the same style he throws away the beach taunts aimed at his co-Kens. Those exchanges, meant to be in-the-know jokes that would go over the heads of kids but tickle the ear of hip adults, are witless and sophomoric in their barely disguised homoeroticism .

Ken tags along uninvited on Barbie’s trip to the real world. She drives, of course, while he straddles the back seat. Unlike Barbie, Ken is captivated by the male energy of Los Angeles. He tries to bring that equine force back to Barbieland and build a society where men sport great biceps and abs, and have a great time drinking beer and dominating their female counterparts. There’s lots of male bonding in the new realm called Kendom, with men co-decorating their houses in horse motifs, exchanging outfits that include fancy furs, and doing bump, grind and male on male cheek-to-cheek kiss ala Busby Berkeley style dance routines on the beach and somewhere in the sky. This is presented as a patriarchy on steroids, a male world out of control.

Gosling’s god-like surface features seem particularly anti-feminist, the kind of physical specimen that you would not expect to find in a land ruled by powerful women, but the type you’d see on the covers of bodice-ripper novels or People’s Sexiest Man Alive issues, or perhaps in a Village People music video. But consistency is not a hallmark in the Gerwig-Baumbach universe. Discordancy is the point. The film’s liberation ethos, sexual and social, is a call, not for peace, forgiveness, and grace , or even enjoyment of what a world of toys can bring to a child, but a Progressive call to arms.

Or worse, it’s a gender studies lecture, where many Barbies and Kens are welcome, but only one voice, a very Feminist voice is allowed to speak, and be heard.

• Wokeism: Very Heavy
• Drugs/Alcohol: Moderate
• Violence: Mild
• Profane language: Minor
• Vulgar/Crude language: Minor
• Nudity: None
• Occult: None

Editor’s Notes

For the narrative arc, Writer/Director Gertwig was partially inspired by the 1994 non-fiction book Reviving Ophelia by Mary Pipher, which accounts the effects of societal pressures on American adolescent girls. The book has been described as a “call to arms” and highlights the increased levels of sexism and violence that affect young females. Pipher asserts that whilst the Feminist movement has aided adult women to become empowered, teenagers have been neglected and require intensive support due to their undeveloped maturity. Lead actress Margot Robbie stated that the film’s aim is to subvert expectations and give audiences “the thing you didn’t know you wanted.”

NOTE: In June 2023, a “Barbie” French poster went viral for including the tagline “Elle peut tout faire. Lui, c'est juste Ken.”, which literally translates to “She can do everything. He’s just Ken.” However, ken is the verlan slang term for the f-word in French, while c’est (“he is”) is a homophone for sait (“he knows how”), meaning the tagline could be read as “She can do everything. He just knows how to f***.” Analysts concluded that it was likely the pun was intentional, as the slang term is common knowledge among French speakers, though Warner Bros. would neither confirm nor deny whether this was the case.

See list of Relevant Issues—questions-and-answers .

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PLEASE share your observations and insights to be posted here.

10 Best Barbie Movies, Ranked

I s there anything more iconic than Barbie? From revolutionizing the toy market all the way back in the late 1950s to the massively popular 2023 feature film directed by Greta Gerwig and starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling , Barbie is a household name who has now become synonymous with everything hot pink and hyper-feminine. Of course, Barbie is not without her fair share of criticism, with her anatomically incorrect and extreme hourglass figure as well as her strict adherence to traditional and Euro-centric beauty standards for women, not aging well throughout the years.

All of this aside, no one can deny Barbie's bright and everlasting star power, and it's clear that she isn't going anywhere soon. A big part of her success, especially during the early 2000s, was her multiple CGI-animated films that depicted classic fairytales, ballet, and literature that have since become cult classics for the now grown-up millennial and Gen-Z audiences. As there are so many films featuring Barbie (29+ and counting!), it's crucial to single out the very best from the most popular Barbie movies out there. With the success of Gerwig's Barbie , fans looking for more may want to binge-watch the very best movies from audiences' childhoods that introduced the beloved character.

'Barbie and the Three Musketeers' (2009)

Director: william lau.

Premiering on Nickelodeon on November of 2009, Barbie and the Three Musketeers is the 16th entry in the film series and features the character as Corinne d'Artagnan. Corinne is a young adventurer who wants nothing more than to become a musketeer, and she gets the chance to do so alongside her friends Aramina, Renée, and Viveca, who join her efforts at foiling an evil plot.

With an empowering message delivered effectively by its female-led cast, the vibrant Barbie movie is one to remember. While there’s not much novelty in its plot ( inspired by the 1844 novel The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas ), it somewhat makes up for it by emphasizing the characters’ positive traits and why they deserve to be called role models for younger audiences. Rent on Apple TV

'Barbie Fairytopia: Mermaidia' (2006)

Directors: william lau, walter p. martishius.

In the less successful but still entertaining follow-up to Fairytopia , Elina (Barbie) seeks support from a hesitant mermaid called Nori, and the duo set off to rescue a merman held captive by the villainous Laverna. Elina must soon use her newfound powers to save both the merman (Nalu) and the entire ocean from Laverne’s evil plans.

Mermaidia cashed in on the hype surrounding everything about mermaids back in the 2000s. While it fades into the background when compared to that saturated subgenra, it does stand out among the Barbie movies for its underwater setting that allowed for more creative – if not somewhat dated – visuals. Rent on Apple TV

'Barbie as the Island Princess' (2007)

Director: greg richardson.

Barbie as the Island Princess features the character as Rosella (or Ro), a young girl who is stranded on an island after a shipwreck. There, she grows up among the animals and is treated like family, until Prince Antonio finds her and introduces her to the rest of the world. Together, they hunt for clues about Ro’s past in the Kingdom of Apollonia.

The movie’s highlight is its musical numbers , which are some of the best in the entire franchise. Its score, composed by Arnie Roth with songs written by Megan Cavallari , perfectly complements its tropical and then royal setting. Does it make up for its uninspired plot that relies on overused tropes? Only a rewatch will help fans decide for themselves. Rent on Apple TV

'Barbie & the Diamond Castle' (2008)

Director: gino nichele.

One of Barbie’s best odes to the power of friendship , Barbie & the Diamond Castle follows Liana and Alexa (the in-universe roles of the dolls, Barbie and Teresa), who one day receive an enchanted mirror. This signals the start of their challenging journey to the diamond castle, which will test their dedication and love for each other.

Alongside their cute puppies, Liana and Alexa’s adventure in the 2008 film makes the 13th entry in the franchise a special one. Their bond certainly reflects numerous friendships among young viewers, who learn a thing or two about the true value of those connections over material wealth. Rent on Apple TV

'Barbie: Fairytopia' (2005)

Director: walter p. martishius.

The 5th Barbie movie and the first to have an original storyline, Barbie: Fairytopia is one of the more popular films in the franchise (that even spawned two sequels). It revolves around the experiences of a wingless flower fairy, Elina who boldly goes against the evil fairy Laverna and saves Fairytopia from her evil plans.

Featuring lovable characters like Bibble and Dandelion, it’s easy to see why Fairytopia is beloved by fans and critics alike. While its sequels didn’t manage to top the original, viewers can at least rely on a magical viewing experience if they decide to revisit the original 2005 film. Rent on Apple TV

'Barbie in the Nutcracker' (2001)

Director: owen hurley.

As the first-ever Barbie film in the franchise , fans owe a lot to this 2001 classic that kickstarted the Barbie renaissance in the new millennium and allowed audiences to witness the doll in all her CGI glory. The film is obviously an adaption of the classic Tchaikovsky ballet, The Nutcracker , and is a fabulous and nostalgic Christmas flick that is perfect to watch alongside some hot chocolate for some holiday fun.

That being said, being the first film does mean that the animation is really just not the best and very dated, and it's sometimes a bit too much of a large distraction. Barbie's facial expressions are pretty glazed and flat and her eyes never quite look right, but it's still pretty charming and full of all the magic and sparkles that can satiate any Barbie fan. Rent on Apple TV

'Barbie of Swan Lake' (2003)

Another film based on a famous Tchaikovsky ballet , Barbie of Swan Lake is a dazzling and magical film that is guaranteed to make you want to relive your childhood dream of becoming a ballerina all over again. Everything that you would want in a fairytale is found in this 2003 Barbie film; shapeshifting, talking animals, a unicorn, with lots and lots of frolicking and dancing in the woods.

This film, as fun as it is, has not gone without well-deserved criticism, especially in terms of antisemitism and how the main villains are portrayed in the film with heavy amounts of dangerous Jewish stereotypes. This is a pretty hard fact to ignore during the film's entire run as it really is blatant, even with all the magic and fun happening. Barbie of Swan Lake is a very well-loved addition to the Barbie film repertoire, but it's safe to say that it's not only the animation that hasn't aged the best. Rent on Apple TV

'Barbie in the 12 Dancing Princesses' (2006)

Directors: greg richardson, terry klassen.

The ninth film in the Barbie Cinematic Universe and the first film to be distributed by Universal Pictures is of course Barbie in the 12 Dancing Princesses , which is full of magical dance numbers and dazzling visuals. Catherine O'Hara also voices the film's animated villain , who unsurprisingly does an excellent job and helps to make this one of the best Barbie films in the entire franchise.

The heart of Barbie in the 12 Dancing Princesses lies within the loving relationship of all the sisters (even if their ages are slightly confusing), who may argue and disagree, but end up loving each other just the same. There's also the overlying message of the importance of solidarity and the strength of creativity still holds up pretty well. Rent on Apple TV

'Barbie as Rapunzel' (2002)

As only the second film of the Barbie empire, it is filled with awkward animation and the same dead eyes that afflicted almost every early 2000s CGI animated media, but that just adds to its nostalgic charm. Unlike other films on this list, Barbie as Rapunzel has really held up well over the years and the story is just as fun and compelling as it was when you first saw it.

The talking animal sidekicks in the animated movie , with one of them being a literal purple dragon who has a complicated relationship with her purple dragon dad, are also pretty fun and helped paved the way for other talking animals in future Barbie endeavors, and the villain is more than a delight to watch. If you haven't seen this Barbie film you are seriously missing out, and is a quintessential must-watch. Rent on Apple TV

'Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper' (2004)

What can be said about Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper that hasn't already been discussed? This film is undoubtedly the greatest Barbie film ever made , all thanks to an excellent idea to make the first-ever Barbie musical with songs that have since become staples of millennial and Gen-Z pop culture.

The story loosely follows the Mark Twain novel, The Prince and the Pauper , and focuses on the fabulously wealthy princess Anneliese and the indentured servant and almost physically identical Erika as they swap lifestyles and find love, because, of course, they do. While Erika's plight of working endlessly hard to support herself and her family is noble and understandable, Anneliese singing about how hard it is to be rich hasn't exactly aged well and is almost laughable to equate their struggles, but it's still an excellent film and pure art. Rent on Apple TV

NEXT: The Movies That Inspired ‘Barbie’, According to Greta Gerwig

Sting Review

A giant spider terrorizes a frayed family unit in the latest b-movie pastiche from kiah roache-turner.

With Sting, director Kiah Roache-Turner has cobbled together something more modest than his previous genre mash-ups, but just as fun. Combining a creature feature and a family drama, the movie provides a showcase for practical effects from Wētā Workshop where the gooey kills are backed by some emotional heft. It's more high-concept tinkering from the director of the Mad Max-meets-Dawn of the Dead saga Wyrmwood, but here, Roache-Turner shows restraint, letting something smaller and special grow around the pastiche.

And his cast, fully aware of the schlocky terrain they tread, embraces it in a way that adds authenticity to the absurdity unfolding around them. There's a moment where comic book artist Ethan (House of the Dragon’s Ryan Corr) works at his drawing board and in comes his moody stepdaughter, Charlotte (Alyla Browne, playing a character whose name makes sense the second Sting introduces its central beastie). They're collaborating on a new series (she writes, he draws), and it's apparently doing numbers, which is nice, though the project has a deeper significance. As this tender scene deftly demonstrates, the comic is a means to nurture their new, awkward family bond as Charlotte exorcizes personal demons. The main character in their project is based on her absentee biological father, a detail that later affects Ethan in surprising ways.

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And yet, not long before the stepfather-stepdaughter-bonding interlude, we watch an exterminator (Jermaine Fowler) get yanked through an air vent by a giant spider in a sequence that pays overt homage to Ghostbusters. (Maybe it's meant to stir Sony into a hiring mood?) Roache-Turner is blending again, playing with tone and emotion, and while that tone might still be tongue-in-cheek, there's an earnestness here that makes much of Sting endearing. Its calibration of sweetly rendered melodrama and monster movie often finds a sturdy balance.

At one point, Ethan asks a creepy science-guy neighbor (Danny Kim) about the arachnid that stalks the cavernous HVAC system of his New York apartment building. "What kind of spider are we talking about here?" The response is succinct and pitch-perfect: "A big one." A giant spider is eating everything with a pulse, and with a cast as small as this one, it's only a matter of time before it comes for Ethan and his family.

Which movie spider has most effectively crawled its creepy way into your memory?

Is that all the information we need to tap into Sting’s goofball rhythms? Yes and no. There’s one more wrinkle to this set-up: this spider, which grows alarmingly fast after becoming Charlotte's pet, hails from outer space. The way it enters this complicated domestic situation is chaotic and efficient: One day, a meteorite zips through the window of their building and lands inside a small dollhouse. Out pops the spider, which wriggles through the playset's teensy interiors to the tune of The Pleasure Seekers' garage-rock bop "What A Way To Die" (a riot unto itself). It's there that Charlotte snatches it up.

Having a secret pet helps us better understand Charlotte and the dynamic in this small apartment. Her sense of abandonment gives her a thick protective shell, and Browne is best when she lets that guard slip. So when she mixes it up with her work-at-home mom (Penelope Mitchell) and stepdad, she's nothing but barbs and attitude. Charlotte feels more comfortable in her bedroom, surrounded by comics, crafting supplies, and fantasy. The spider gives Charlotte a sense of personal agency, and she rewards it in kind by giving it a mighty name pulled from The Hobbit, which sits on her well-stocked bookshelf: Sting.

There's a disarming coziness about this film that's easy to appreciate. Its closed-off environment has a relaxing effect – Sting is set during a blizzard, so most of the cast wears awesome grandma sweaters – that’s gleefully undercut by shocks and dread once Charlotte's spider grows to improbable proportions and shows signs of extranormal intelligence. The beast itself is a marvel, in the few moments we're allowed to view it in its terrible glory: Wētā has conjured a monster that is part black widow and part xenomorph, with some of the freakazoid DNA from those giant creepy-crawlies in Ellory Elkayem's Eight Legged Freaks tossed into the mix. Viewed through actively roaming cameras and a heightened sense of reality, Sting frequently gives off the energy of Alien fused with – what else? – Evil Dead.

That's par for the course when it comes to Kiah Roache-Turner. Passionate horror movie fans will recognize and even appreciate much of the visual language he brings to Sting; there's even an added narrative flourish that pays tribute to Roger Corman's Little Shop of Horrors. However, as Sting's body count and the cinephile allusions pile up side by side, we're left wondering what other famous movies might be on a collision course in a future Roache-Turner project. Maybe they’ll finally meet head on with an idea that's uniquely his?

With Sting, Kiah Roache-Turner has cobbled together his most modestly realized horror movie pastiche yet, blending Wētā Workshop creature effects with a family drama that gives some weight to its gooey kills. While it tinkers a bit too laboriously with familiar concepts – Ghostbusters, Alien, and Evil Dead are its most obvious touchstones – the movie boasts a solid cast headlined by a memorable Alyla Browne and House of the Dragon's Ryan Corr, who give Roache-Turner's wintry chiller enough heart to make the goopy monster mayhem to come feel consequential.

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The Punisher Is Back: Jon Bernthal Enters the MCU as a Bloodied Frank Castle in New ‘Daredevil: Born Again’ Set Photos

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Jon Bernthal is back playing Frank Castle (aka Punisher) on the set of “ Daredevil: Born Again ,” new set photos from which have the character paired up with Charlie Cox’s eponymous hero and soaked in blood. The Disney+ series is now filming in New York City. Bernthal debuted as Frank Castle in Netflix’s “ The Punisher ” series, which aired for two seasons and 26 episodes between 2017 and 2019.

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“Daredevil: Born Again” has been through a bit of a development rollercoaster. The series parted ways with  head writers Chris Ord and Matt Corman  last October while the production was shut down amid the SAG-AFTRA strike. Marvel also released the directors for the remaining episodes of the season as it decided to take “Born Again” in a new creative direction despite half of the series’ 18-episode order already being shot. Only some elements of pre-existing material is expected to be used in the final cut of the show.

Dario Scardapane, who wrote and executive produced Bernthal’s “The Punisher” series, stepped in to serve as the new “Born Again” showrunner a few weeks after Ord and Corman’s exit. The duo are still being credited as executive producers. Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead — who directed on Marvel’s “Moon Knight” and “Loki” Season 2 — were added as directors. It’s unclear whether or not the original 18-episode order remains.

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