Incoherent mess
For the first 30 minutes or so Barbie is a fun, feather-weight satire with a pleasant, cartoonish look and a fizzy, upbeat vibe as it plays around with the Barbie image, lightly mocking stereotypes and illusions of perfection.
Then the stuff about patriarchy kicks in and the film turns into a thinly disguised #metoo rant, trading comedy for man-bashing and a lot of confused political point-scoring about sexism, women's rights and feminism - or, possibly, the failure of feminism?
The film's a mess, unfocussed and rambling and with very few laughs.
The whole two-worlds premise seemed the perfect set-up for an all-out comedy so it's a shame the film becomes so consumed by with-it issues about gender politics, representation and a large dose of female self-loathing.