GTKashi, 1 year ago

I thought the pacing of things was fine and didn’t really feel like too many scenes overstayed their welcome. The 2001 opener I thought was pretty great. A few things did stick out a bit for me, though.

1. The fantastical version of reality. A spelled-out theme of the movie is how hard it is being a woman, which Mom-lady really lays out for the Barbies. It makes some sense because the Barbies clearly don’t know what real is like. The trouble is they say it instead of showing it. We don’t see Mom-lady having any particular problems specific to her being a woman in the movie’s world. The audience is supposed to nod along approvingly because she’s saying things that many real women feel, but she’s also from some surreal version of Earth where people in gaudy cowboy outfits can wander into a school and talk to the kids and steal library books and they don’t get tackled by security. We really needed some scenes with some biting misogyny to give that speech some impact.
2. Pitting the Kens against each other seemed convoluted. Ultimately the solution to the crisis is… voter suppression? Really?
3. The old film montage near the end seemed really gratuitous.