Waka Wikaire-James

A perfect collaboration of witty jokes, stellar casting, and just a great reflection and prediction on male and female roles and relationships. For kids, the impeccable production design, easily accessible plot, and charming humour will make them smile from ear to ear. For everyone else, this film is a crazy film that not only highlights the problems in our society but also how they started and what we need to change. Barbie and Ken are more than just dolls, they represent the childlike sensibilities we all had playing in our backyards with siblings, friends, and family. We see them grow up in real time and see how the real world influences them to take a path they didn't choose, but most importantly they THINK they chose. It's like meeting a childhood friend when you are seven all grown up and you see how the world they're in has shaped not just who they are but who they think they are. This film holds a torch up to how consumerism, corporate greed, media image, and politics have all influenced what it means to be a man and woman not to make men and women happy in being themselves but to make them as rich as possible. I know that women will watch this in droves but I feel that men will pass on it as being a girly pop, feminist hit piece on men and while it does attack things like patriarchy and male hubris, it's doing it in knowing that men want to help women and be there for them. It's doing it out of empathy, not hate and it being written by a man and woman shows. Wonderfully conceived, painstakingly crafted, and more than well received.