MADAME

Possibly the best original film made in recent years. Would have been an even more enjoyable experience if there weren't two entitled brats sitting behind me, talking their heads off and making very loud (and inappropriate) comments at every given opportunity...despite being told to shut up numerous times!

I'd been looking forward to this movie for months, and I couldn't be more disappointed. I don't think I've been so miserable after a viewing...perhaps ever, honestly. Barbie is supposed to be about empowering girls and women, and I was expecting some sort of heartwarming story about just that. But instead what we got was a confusing slog full of confusing and predictable, unintelligent soap-boxing, and very little empowerment. By the end it seemed like every second line was related to how terrible men are, or how terrible it is to be a woman. The "climactic monologue" delivered by the human mother was beyond depressing, and it didn't help that in order to "deprogram" the Barbies, the mother would share some self-degrading "insight" about - you guessed it - the eternal and inherent suffrage and despair of womanhood. As a young woman (presumably the prime target for this movie) I felt actively disempowered by the film and its trite, not-so-feminist message. My friends and I left the theatre feeling miserable. Speaking of, it's really disingenuous that a lot of the people defending this film are trying to suggest that the only people who didn't like it are angry men who hate womens' empowerment when the movie tried as hard as it could to degrade all of us. If you want to watch a feel-good Barbie film about women kicking a** not at the expense of men, watch The Diamond Castle instead. I hope Chevrolet gets their sales up too because that product placement couldn't have been more in-your-face if they'd tried. Every car was a Chevy, and all the car scenes were shot as if it was a car commercial. That alone was funnier than half the jokes.