All the right messaging, a unique world, so much going for it. Personally (and clearly, I’m in the minority here), but it didn’t engage me or entertain me the way I’d hoped.
This had the potential to be an emotional tale of bringing Barbie’s unique view to a world that much needs it, with Ken sabotaging it and learning through her… OR the tale of a mother-daughter who find themselves in Barbie-land which is undergoing a makeover for the worse… Weighing into either could have allowed for better emotional investment.
Trying to cover both ground made it pretty surface-level, on top of that the unsubtle ad narrative to simply sell more was too apparent, and the self-referential tone seemed to be in aid of that. Big evil-corp saying so we fucked up, but that wasn’t our intent, while batting eyelids and trying to sell old limited edition toys as well as the updated woke models just made me angry at having paid for a feature length ad.
Overall, the company branding and tone took away from the experience which could have been emotionally manipulating me into feeling the intent rather than ham-fisting a sales pitch.