Hi, my lovely readers, I watched the much-awaited Barbie movie last week and I have to say that it did not meet my expectations. Maybe the hype created around the movie raised my expectations a bit too much, but even keeping aside the razzmatazz, the premise of the movie was not clear, and the comedy seemed forced.

The movie starts with showing how the creation of Barbie replaced baby dolls little girls used to play with and the range of professions that Barbie has mastered has helped end patriarchy in the real world. We are then given a glimpse of the Barbie world where all Barbies live in their open dreamhouses, and they are always happy. Barbie Land has a female president, female construction workers, female reporters, etc. Basically, in Barbie Land the roles of men and women are reversed as compared to the Real World. The Kens are cheerleaders and are always in the shadows of their respective Barbies.

Twenty minutes into the movie, Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) starts malfunctioning. She has thoughts about death, develops cellulite and has flat feet. She is advised to go to “Weird Barbie” who helps in ‘fixing’ other malfunctioning Barbies. Weird Barbie tells her that the girl playing with her in the real world is upset and that has seemed to affect her Barbie doll as well. To restore the balance, she must go into the real world and find this girl and help fix her problems.

This is where the movie begins with its premise where Barbie and Ken (Ryan Reynolds) go into the real world and are bewildered with the things around them. We are shown how Barbie is surprised to see women being oppressed when she had always believed that the women were leaders.

What I loved about the movie where its sets, Dua Lipa and John Cena’s special appearance and Margot Robbie’s outfits. Apart from that, the movie lacked a basic storyline. The movie has shown how patriarchy is bad and the world should be ruled by women. In my opinion, the dominance of any gender adversely affects the other. Ken learns about patriarchy and changes everything in Barbie Land in the absence of stereotypical Barbie. Barbie is shocked by this and changes everything back towards the end. While dominance by men is not good, dominance by women is not any better. I wish the writers had shown an ending where the roles of men and women compliment each other and are equal than ending with a matriarchal society.

The movie also did not have the humour which was expected. The subtle comedy was already covered in the trailer, and it really does not go beyond that. All in all, I feel the movie has done well at the box office because of its unique concept of making a Barbie movie which is not animated as it usually is. I would say that you could give it miss and maybe watch the movie when it streams on OTT.

I would give Barbie 2 out of 5 stars.