Barbie

Barbenheimer, part 1. For the future of movie theaters, it's a blessing. In the current era of professional strikes, post-Covid suffering, and the domination of streaming services, two summer premieres have turned into a contrasting event that appeals to a wide spectrum of audiences. Professionals are slowly realizing that black-and-white / banal targeting of content to specific audiences like men / women / children is ending. Everyone goes to see Barbie wearing pink, and those who didn't sleep during lectures know how the relationship to this color has changed over the past hundred years (and will continue to change). Globally, this is a phenomenon over half a century old, so it is not surprising that Barbie has a large percentage of adult fans after 64 years, while children are just beginning to discover her. At the same time, it is the first live-action film after the era of 40 cartoons for the VHS, TV, and VOD market, so that is also a reason to celebrate. The soundtrack is pleasant, although some tracks make sense only after watching the movie. So what is the final film like? The trailers revealed a really large number of ideas, the style and humor were unveiled, and it seemed that there was not much left. Fortunately, smart marketing fooled us, and the film actually offers an additional message, and it is not just a showcase of how Greta Gerwig tried to reconstruct 30 classic motifs from the history of cinema, but it has emotional depth. Barbie's encounter with reality is unexpectedly brutal, just like Ken's journey toward patriarchy. The whole story is conceived as a fantasy quest spiced up with elements of a classic musical. And surprisingly, it works. What is the proof for something like this? Some feminist analysts are already dizzy from it all. I can't wait for Barbie according to Kate McKinnon to come out and proudly display her next to Malibu Stacy and Cynthia. If you're interested in the real world of Mattel, I highly recommend the documentary Tiny Shoulders, Rethinking Barbie (2018). (07/26/2023)

In terms of experience, it’s five stars. It's a riveting, visually stunning, imaginative, fun ride with a fabulous Margot Robbie and an even more fabulous Ryan Gosling. It's a pleasure to see a big-budget film that totally breaks away from the uniform grey that blockbuster Hollywood usually offers today. But the voice of reason complains timidly about the script's underdeveloped supporting (human) characters and the sometimes annoyingly literal feminist cannonade in the final act, when it seems as if they wanted every argument they could think of to be heard. So, four stars. (07/19/2023)

Heaps of creative ideas and social commentary that after half an hour feels like out of a machine-gun, and the rest of the running time is just recycled. Moreover, Barbie is too shrill and dramatically inconsistent. After an hour, I wished it would end. The acting is unsurprisingly good, at times funnily accurate in reflecting the problems of contemporary society, but I don't quite get the commercial success and worldwide hype around Barbie. (12/02/2023)

My daughter recently told me she was absolutely pink with joy that I took her to the playground. That phrase kept coming back to me as I watched this film, because it is essentially about the loss of joy, but pretends to be about something else. It's not grim philosophy, but a terribly simple and basic petty battle of the sexes. The sequence of sketches and funny scenes works well, including the great cast. The finale, however, is all about the fact that from a certain point onwards, the pink joy disappears and I'll have to watch it live, unable to do anything about it. (08/05/2023)

The exploration of the real world by people coming from Barbie Land is stimulating and original and hints at the promise of a clever, fresh and original satire reflecting the pseudo-problems of contemporary (western) society. But the potential inherent in that is cut dead by the subsequent “gender conflict” and its childish resolution to which the film resorts. And that’s a shame. Even the balance of entertainment for children and adults doesn’t work here, since the movie is not for kids at all. But let’s be glad that audiences are returning in large numbers to cinemas now that the pandemic is over. Barbie deserves thanks for that. And special praise goes to the originator of the brilliant “Barbenheimer” marketing concept, though the hardworking crew around Tom Cruise didn’t deserve to have M:I-7 overshadowed. (08/16/2023)