Alyse Hein

*SPOILERS* God, I wanted to love this movie. And in many parts, I do! The humor of Ryan Gosling and Kate McKinnon had me wheezing constantly. Where it loses me is in its inability to "show-not-tell". The first time I REALLY got annoyed was America Ferrara's monologue about being a woman and how that "broke the curse". It just seemed really contrived, heavy-handed, and poorly written. Plus I had the feeling they wanted us to not like Ken at some point in the movie but they cast RYAN GOSLING who was endearing and hilarious and even at his worst, I still felt for him because he's just a really lovable actor. And I think maybe I was expecting a movie like LifeSize (Tyra Banks) where the moral was that the BEST parts of Barbie is bringing out the kindness and uniqueness and fabulousness of others. I think that's what they were GOING for (hence the Barbie and Ken's doing that "I am Barbie" scene) But they made the Kens actually kind of evil so when they came back together at the end I had a hard time rooting for them, and then the Barbie's STILL wouldn't let them in government I was like ... ok so it's still the same problem of non-inclusivity that turned the Kens evil in the beginning? Maybe I just think she sabotaged her own points which is SUCH a shame because I really loved the direction of the movie and the aesthetics were BREATHTAKING and it was still fun to watch. I just felt like at some point the writing went out the window because the director couldn't get out from up her own ass.

Every time I think something is going to happen BAM another scene of complete exposition. Every scene is just a set up for MORE exposition. In this recent episode there was exposition about how the void worked, then the scene cuts away to another group of characters talk about the exact same thing - how the void worked - without adding to literally anything about the explanation. It’s lazy writing because Disney knows I’m going to watch it no matter what, which is unfortunately true. But damn do they believe their audience is stupid and has to be hand-held the entire time.