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Barbie movie: Marketing was great, but film was a letdown

The packaging of the "Barbie" movie was more enticing than the lackluster content it contained. Despite a year-long marketing campaign and numerous promotional activities, the film turned out to be a disappointment.

  • 9
  • 10
The writing, across the board, is lazy. While the script doesn't need to be plausible, given its subject matter, every time it takes a nonsensical narrative leap, a character cracks a joke as if the viewer is a cultural ignoramus for questioning the film's logic. Two puzzling scenes featuring Rhea Perlman from "Cheers" add to the confusion. The mother-daughter characters portrayed by America Ferrera and Ariana Greenblatt are poorly conceived and lack depth. Some semblance of drama emerges when Ken becomes fixated on the patriarchy and masculinity of the real world, bringing those concepts back to disrupt Barbie Land. However, the execution lacks excitement.