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# Barbie Review: Let’s Go Barb
- URL: https://www.thenaijanerds.com/barbie-review-lets-go-barb/
- Published: 2023-10-23T20:35:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-01T20:37:18.000Z
- Description: If Barbie proves anything, do not underestimate her power, nor does she have any comparable
- Author: Jeffrey Peterson
- Tags: Movie Reviews

Director: Greta Gerwig

Run time: 1 hour 54 minutes

If you’re anything like me, and hopefully you weren’t, you yelled “Let’s go Barb” often leading up to the film's premiere, instead of “Come on Barbie, Let’s go party.” I, along with a small collective, underestimated and misunderstood the power of Barbie, and couldn’t even get the “Barbie Girl” lyric correct. I expected Gerwig to deliver a solid IP movie about Barbie that would bleed into sequels, rivaling ***The Lego Movie***. What audiences received instead was an insightful satire that brought back the days of ***Airplane*** and **Spaceballs** while adding refreshing takes to the genre.

In case you haven’t watched it yet, ***Barbie*** begins with an introduction to Barbieland, narration provided by actress Helen Mirren and music lyrics provided by singer Lizzo. Barbie, played by Margot Robbie, begins and ends her days wonderfully yet the same way each day. Her life is filled with other Barbies played by Kate McKinnon, Issa Rae, and Alexandra Shipp, Kens played by Ryan Gosling, Simu Liu, and Kingsley Ben-Adir, and don’t forget about Allen (Michael Cera). Amid a night of dancing, Barbie has an existential crisis which begins to play out in the real world. She eventually leaves Barbieland with Gosling’s Ken in tow, meeting Sasha (Ariana Greenblatt) and Gloria (America Ferrera), a daughter and mother pair, as well as an overpowering CEO of Mattel played by Will Ferrell, all in an effort to find real purpose.

One of the main keys to ***Barbie’s*** success is commitment to the Barbieland authenticity and Gerwig’s willingness to undercut both Barbie and Ken leads, only to build them back up again. Short-sighted audiences may have expected ***Barbie*** to ooze feminism and bash the patriarchy, but instead, the film attempts to show the layers of feminism, though it falls a little short here. The film exposes the layers of patriarchy and masculinity as well, but once again, the few layers that get peeled back reveal the beginnings of a larger social critique that’s incomplete within the film.

When it comes to narrative and overall plot, ***Barbie*** is actually a little predictable when compared to other recent IP blockbusters. The film follows a similar trajectory of toys moving into the ‘real world’ to learn life lessons, but as mentioned previously, the film overcommits to how it moves through this plot, pulling from classic satires, theater production, and spunky musicals. Speaking of, an additional dance scene would have been a welcome addition, though the few used were still stellar. The overcommitment to a plastic world within a materialistic world is the foundation to the film.

If ***Barbie*** proves anything, do not underestimate her power, nor does she have any comparable. Barbie is not Superman, Batman, or Spider-Man. She’s carved her own space over the last 60 years and thanks to the actresses playing her multiple iterations, her pop culture life expectancy is unpredictable moving forward. 

Robbie does an amazing job with the Barbie character, alongside Gosling, McKinnon, and Cera. The strongest characterizations in the film are the ones that are the most committed. Unfortunately, the cast is quite diverse, but screen time isn’t balanced amongst the POC versions of Barbie and Ken. Beyond that missed opportunity, audiences are fully convinced of the following: Robbie is a plastic Barbie worried about death, Ken is worried about his existence in relation to Barbie, McKinnon’s Barbie is still recovering from hours of play, and Michael Cera is just Allen. All are convincing in their tenor and their temperament. The comedy and humor along with the dance numbers round out the approaches to these characters that are anything but fake.

**Barbie** currently sits at a gross of $1.4 billion as audiences continue to debate whether the film destroys fragile masculinity, undercuts the gains of feminism, supports capitalism, or does nothing at all other than complicate the Oscars and push *Oppenheimer* to $1 billion. One of the most logical ways to approach the film is through the vein of classic satire films of the 70s, 80s, and 90s. When viewed alongside movies from **Blazing Saddles**, ***Spaceballs***, ***Airplane***, or ***Police Academy*** to the ***Scary Movie*** franchise, ***Barbie*** becomes a return to an old-fashioned era of film.

The main context used to analyze the film is the Barbenheimer experience. Yes, it was surreal and unpredictable and unreplicable, but both films stood well on their own and provided complete viewing experiences. The films work together and separately. I don’t think they subtract from one another or detract from one another either. If you managed to see one, congratulations. 

I hope you get to see it again. If you saw the other, congratulations are appropriate as well. If you saw both with time in between, then I respect you for giving yourself time to reflect on them. If you saw them back to back, regardless of order, then I also commend you too. I personally saw ***Barbie*** first in a packed theater and then ***Oppenheimer*** in standard IMAX 4 days later, but viewing Nolan’s ***Batman*** Trilogy sequentially in 2012 was one of my film viewing experience highlights.

If we return to ***Barbie*** singularly, it was nothing less than an experience. I was in the minority of moviegoers and underestimated the power of the culture, the film, and the fans. Barbie was everywhere when I was growing up, but as an adult, I didn't realize how many more layers she'd gained over the years. I remember Barbie as the ubiquitous icon and unreachable stereotype. I knew she stood for everything women could be as well as everything people expected them to be. 

But this movie taught me the rest of the story, especially if we refrain from the Barbienheimer context for a moment more. From the instant my wife and I stepped out of our car for our screening, we were in the moment. She'd already made fun of me for wearing black to the event, but I was immediately drowned out by swarms of pink, all ages, genders, heights, and shapes. There were teenagers, mothers and grandmothers, drag queens, and Barbies in purses throughout the nearby restaurants, streets, movie theater, and beyond. Barbie was everywhere. She'd taken over. 

And she’s still everywhere. Yes, the film is a master class in marketing. That’s part of the game of art and I don’t think we should be ashamed of it. The marketing can only do so much though. It gets fans to purchase tickets in advance, hype through anticipation, and send glowing reviews after the fact. But something else happened in the in-between. There was a movie and that movie functioned simultaneously as satire, comedy, metatext, theater, and as a springboard for conversations. ***Barbie*** is a success that’s still on a roll.

4.5 out of 5