Barbie was one of the biggest movie events of 2023, but in truth, the film has far more flaws than many early audiences were willing to admit. Creating the “Barbenheimer” sensation with its tandem release alongside Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, Barbie smashed all kinds of box office records, raking in a whopping 1.4 billion dollars. While its success is testament enough to its quality as a hilarious comedy willing to look a little deeper at themes of feminism, Barbie is far from a flawless film.

There are a few popular critiques of Barbie that aren’t entirely fair, from those who would admonish it as “anti-man” to the raving fury of the anti-woke crowd. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t heaps of legitimate criticism that can be leveled at Gret Gerwig’s box office titan, which disappoints in several ways by the time Barbie‘s ending rolls around and cuts to credits.

10

Barbie’s Infamous Monologue Is Quite Heavy-Handed

All subtlety flies out the window when it’s time to directly address the audience

One aspect of Barbie that has garnered some amount of flak as time passed, even among favorable audiences, is the monologue performed by America Ferrera’s character, Gloria. A normal human mom that gets sucked into the bizarre world of Barbieland, Gloria becomes discouraged by realizing that the same issues that affect women in the real world are also faced by the fanciful re-creations of them in the doll’s universe. Her resulting “It is literally impossible to be a woman” speech essentially directly addresses the audience about the film’s themes.

Beyond being an awkward, unsubtle thesis statement breaking up the flow of the film, this monologue sums up Barbie‘s issues as a surface-level dissection of feminism. While trying to keep things somewhat light, the powerful message gets diluted along the way, and the speech’s attempt to make up for this utterly clashes with the tone. On a second watch, the monologue is little more than a speed bump that holds up the film from progressing.

9

Gloria And Sasha Don’t Get Used Enough

The delightful mother-daughter combo needed more screentime

Among the cast of Barbie, America Ferrera’s Gloria and Ariana Greenblatt’s Sasha are something of undersung heroes. The non-doll characters add a much-needed element of humanity to the bubblegum pink scenery, and while they might not be as bombastic as Ken or Weird Barbie, they work as necessary portholes through which the audience can become acclimated to Barbieland’s woes. Ferrera and Greenblatt deliver excellent performances as a mother-daughter duo with a very believable strained relationship, as Sasha enters something of a rebellious tween age range.

This makes it all the more disappointing that Gloria and Sasha are barely present at all throughout the film’s third act. This is made all the stranger by the fact that the film seems to be setting up their relationship as incredibly important to the plot, with Gloria’s negative feelings infecting Barbie’s perfect facade. Yet as the Kens rise and fall into power and Barbie continues to struggle with her existential crisis, Gloria and Sasha are lost in the struggle, being given hardly a moment to reconcile in the chaos.

8

Lizzo’s Soundtrack Hasn’t Aged Very Well

The controversial singer undermines Barbie’s message

Of all the things in 2023’s Barbie that have aged poorly after only a year, Lizzo’s inclusion on the film’s soundtrack is one of the hardest things to fault the movie for. The pop star’s upbeat anthem “Pink” was a fantastic introduction to Barbieland before slowly allowing Barbie’s existential dread to seep into the lyrics, but Lizzo came under fire for some serious allegations only a month after the film had released. In August of 2023, Lizzo was sued by several of her former backup dancers, accusing her of sexual harassment, body-shaming, and professional abuse.

With this in mind, it’s quite painful to hear a song from Lizzo being so integral to a film about female empowerment. The entire opening sequence of Barbie has retroactively been tainted by Lizzo’s actions, manifesting as an uncomfortable beat on any rewatch. Obviously, it’s not Barbie‘s fault for not learning of the controversy before anyone else and deciding to include Lizzo, but it bears mentioning as a way the film has aged poorly in just one year.

7

Ken Ends Up Eclipsing Barbie

Despite the film’s insistence, Ken steals the show

There’s no denying that Ryan Gosling’s Ken was among the greatest comedic performances of 2023. Much of the character’s comedy revolved around the fact that in both the film and in real life, Ken is essentially just an accessory to Barbie. But despite the film’s insistence that this is the case, Ken ends up completely stealing the show more often than not, sometimes feeling like he even has more screentime than Barbie herself.

By the time the film lands on Ken’s hilarious musical number, the film has already spent quite a bit of time focusing exclusively on his rise to partiarchy in Barbieland after witnessing it in the real world. As immutably funny as Ken is, he ends up dominating too much of the film. This was even paralleled in the film’s real-world recognition, in which Ryan Gosling’ Oscar performance of “I’m Just Ken” eclipsed Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made For?” at the 2024 Academy Awards.

6

Barbie Is Very Heteronormative

For a film about representation, Barbie could do better

It goes without saying that Barbie is a film primarily designed to call attention to women’s issues. However, in doing so, the film extends a grave over-reliance on heteronormativity in Barbieland. All Barbies are implied to be attracted to Kens, finding themselves as a “long term, long distance, low commitment, casual girlfriend” by the advent of the Kens’ partiarchy. It would’ve been nice to see some Barbie-Barbie or Ken-Ken relationships in the mix.

The reason this is so important to a film like Barbie in particular is how staunchly the film sets its identity in representation. That’s not to mention the fact that many a real-life Barbie doll has found itself at the center of a sexual awakening one way or the other. A lack of acknowledgment in this area makes throwaway jokes like Allan’s description of fitting in all of Ken’s clothes or the queer-coded appearance of Magic Earring Ken feel cheap and unearned.

5

Barbie Was The Weaker Film Of Barbenheimer

While the two films were never competing, Nolan’s epic is a clear winner

It’s no surprise that a massive chunk of Barbie‘s success can be attributed to the sensation of “Barbenheimer” that swept theaters in July 2023. The humorous dichotomy between two very different films releasing on the same day struck a chord with prospective audiences, who rushed out to see both for the bit alone. With the two films now forever being linked in the pop culture zeitgeist, it’s hard to say that Barbie isn’t overshadowed by Oppenheimer.

While both movies are great, Oppenheimer is in a league of its own, being not only a fantastic period piece biopic, but one of Christopher Nolan’s best films in general. With it’s daring narrative structure, beautiful cinematography and all-star cast of powerful performers, it’s no wonder the film made out like a bandit at the 2024 Oscars, its haul including the coveted “Best Picture” Academy Award. Oppenheimer is better at being a gripping historical drama than Barbie is at being a thinkpiece comedy.

4

The Film Is Ultimately A Commercial For Barbie

Barbie is deeply rooted in capitalism

Barbie has one of the most interesting relationships with its mega-popular intellectual property of any major film in recent years. The movie is quick to poke fun at Mattel, painting them in a humorous light as bumbling villains while admonishing some of their stranger ventures with Barbie dolls over the years. But at the end of the day, Barbie is essentially one big commercial for both Barbie dolls and the film itself.

This shines in the film’s reverence for Barbie’s impact on pop culture, aggrandizing the doll’s importance with some powerful speeches from her creator, Ruth Handler. While it might be willing to make fun of its corporate roots, Barbie ultimately doesn’t shy away from them either, at times feeling like a celebration of capitalism. The film isn’t even above injecting commercials unrelated to Mattel, including some painful Chevy product placement that feels especially jarring to watch on a second viewing.

3

Barbie Features One Of Will Ferrell’s Most Limited Performances

The comedy icon isn’t given much to do in Barbie

Barbie has a stacked cast of comedy icons, from Saturday Night Live veterans to millennial humor icons like Michael Cera. Yet one actor the film doesn’t seem to know how to pilot, oddly enough, is the legendary Will Ferrell. Playing the CEO of Mattel in the real world, Ferrell does his job well enough, getting a few laughs here and there, but the character feels like a dramatic downgrade compared to Will Ferrell’s other movie appearances.

It’s hard to describe just exactly why this is the case upon a fresher viewing of Barbie. It could be that Greta Gerwig wasn’t sure how to give Will Ferrell enough room to work his magic, or was overly cautious about him stealing scenes from the main characters. Either way, Will Ferrell’s performance in Barbie is certainly one of his most stilted and limited in years, making his appearance feel like a waste of potential in the otherwise hilarious film.

2

Barbie Can’t Decide What Its Story Is About

Barbie is one of the most meandering films in years

Summarizing the plot of Barbie is no easy or straightforward task. The film’s unconventional structure wanders in all sorts of different directions, and by the time the credits roll, it’s easy to feel as though Barbie was never able to figure out what it wanted to be about. The plot weaves its way through all sorts of different concepts without giving any single one enough room to truly breathe, and the end result can appear to be a mess of half-finished ideas.

First, Barbie begins with the titular doll’s existential crisis and journey to the real world, only to get sent packing back to Barbieland by Mattel. Ken’s B-plot ends up utterly engulfing the third act transition, drowning out Gloria and Sasha’s relationship with an espionage sequence dedicated to wrestling power back from the Kens. Finally, in the last few moments, the film pivots to being about Barbie’s desire to become a real person, eschewing her fate as a “generic” Barbie. This avalanche of ideas never stays on one task long enough to truly pay off.

1

The Mechanics Of Barbieland Are Confusing At Best

Nonsensical or not, the concept of Barbieland can take one out of the film

At one point in Barbie, a Mattel employee asks about the true nature of Barbieland, only to essentially be told not to think about it by the higher-ups. This interaction is clearly addressed to audiences who may be confused about the nature of Barbieland, whose mechanics are ultimately unimportant to the film’s narrative. This is a clever joke, but not altogether a good excuse for the film’s loose worldbuilding, which can often be distracting from the central plot.

Every detail revealed about the doll’s lives raises more questions. Why is there only one Alan at first, only for him to later claim several Alans escaped to form the boy band NSYNC? There seems to be only one Barbie or Ken in Barbieland for a certain model of doll, so why are they still connected to a single individual toy in the real world? These questions may be ultimately unimportant, but are especially distracting on a second viewing of Barbie, which can no longer shield itself through novelty alone.