Chris Koo

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While it may serve as a rudimentary reminder of very real existing social problems, there seems to be a lack of any coheisve, meaningful plot; nor development of any of the characters. I seemed to be forced to sit through a movie that was more focused on the one-sided ridicule of "the patriarchy" than the development of its own story, and letting the viewers draw their own conclusions. While certainly movies can serve as a vessel to outline existing societal issues (catcalling, objectification of women, male dominated sectors leading to consciuous/subsconscious oppresion of women), I feel like it certainly makes your pespective more convincing if its done so with finesse, class and substance. All three were missing from this movie. This movie was all about the shaming and mocking of certain groups of men, the insecure, the weird (alan? apparently no one cares about him cause hes different), the obsessed with power and domination and horses ("the patriarchy"), the douche and the corporate douche. While I dont agree with certain behaviors from some of these groups, the mocking of these groups of men almost felt propoganda-like and comedic, and it felt like it lost the very point it was trying to make due to its poor delivery and outragenousness. The subversion of power from male dominated to female dominated was also very key. Whilst I agree women should have equality of oppurtunity in every way, this movie was all about fighting fire with fire. "we were once oppressed so now let us be the oppressors". Lets emotionally manipulate these unsuspecting men and pretend to be impressed whilst we hatch a plan to turn them against each other. Very distasteful and not the type of change we need in the world today. I understand gender issues are real in society today but an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. Don't let good men around the world feel shamed/like they have to pay for the sins of others/previous generations of men. I walked out of this movie feeling ashamed to be male honestly. And this leads me to my next point. Ken stands to be the blanket term for all men. Everyone is Ken. And without any other meaningful male lead to show us otherwise, the portrayal of Ken just shows the poor portrayal of all men. Sure, he had a lesson to learn about finding himself and his own identity; but where is the making of this man? Where are his strong and good traits? Every good antagonist is relatable, has strong traits (Captain Vidal from Pan's Labyrinth, Walter White from Breaking Bad, King Commodus from Gladiator, even Thanos). All had glaringly questionable perspectives, but they were built to be real, all rounded characters, which makes the "problems" with their perspectives feel even more real and threatening. But Ken was being portrayed as a shell of a man, an stand-in hollow figure. Also the daughter-mother relationship (as was covered in another good comment here), was just so poor. Without showing us the reasons for thee daughter's hate, it was so difficult to like this character. She just felt like a whiny, ungrateful, too cool to enjoy life character that had a sudden change of heart because it was convienient for the plot. Even the basic, important elements of the structure of the fictional world were so sparesly elaborated e.g. the corporate guys, the Barbie drawing to Barbie world parallel, the overarching message of the movie. Top tier casting and art style unfortunately ruined by distasteful ramming of social commentary down my throat, and poor storytelling, plot and character development. Still cute to see a barbie movie tho hehe.

Good things first: - The new transformer aesthetic was quite enjoyable, paying homage to the retro comic / cartoon designs. And I was impressed with the film adaptation of it. - The certainly large villian from the comics was done justice in terms of size and scale What I personally didn't like: - Rap music didn't fit well with the final fight.. Just feel like huge epic fights should have epic music like in Avengers End Game, previous transformer films etc. It can be nice in certain fight sequences with characters that fit e.g. bee, but not a main epic fight man... - Certain scenes and poses just felt like a copy of ultron and iron man. You'll know when you see it - The robots didn't have the same sense of power and scale as the previous movies. I also didn't feel as emotionally connected to any of them bar maaybe one and there was almost zero character development or arc. - Optimus prime felt weak until the last fight and he didn't have as strong a persona/presence as the previous films. **SPOILER ALERT** - Plot wise, it just seemed a bit absurd that Optimus Prime was willing to bank the destruction of not only Earth and his home, but other planets as well just so the few of them could go back home. It just seemed for someone portrayed so self sacrificial, logical and rational that the optimal (haha) choice would be to destroy the key straight up without risking anything. - Why did a planet killing god not brief his main minion that there would be two halves of the key? - Didn't even get to see the faces of the transformed maximals much. At least give them more screen time like in Age of Extinction - Im sorry but maximals and autobots both saying roll out at the same time was a new level of corny... just my opinion - Scourge seemed powerful only in the sense that the autobots felt weaker than him, not that he was stronger. As opposed to, for example Lockdown in Age of Extinction, you could just feel how strong he was with his weapons, tech and persona. - Autobots being beat to the key the first time even though they were literally on the same planet and noticed it immediately when it first appeared. - Why did mirage feel so useless and weak in his robot mode and when Noah was controlling him, he had so much more agency. - If Optimus prime cant hold his own body weight down, how on earth is a human sized transformer managing to pull him. Like its one thing to be absurd and over the top but at least operate within the rules of ur fictional universe. You dont see ordinary wakandan warriors picking up Thor's hammer. - The significance of the key was not really explained. Like how is this one tiny orange crystal the thing that stops a planet eating god from assaulting earth. And if unicron is already in the process of destroying earth, how does destroying the key stop the whole process? Compare this to the infinity stones and the gauntlet and how that was explained and conveyed to the audience.