I laughed a lot. The sight gags of barbie stuff, like the ambulance opening up into a mini-hospital really couldn’t have been done in a non-branded movie. Rowan and I were the only one who laughed at the Zack Synder joke in a theater full of kids (danger of a 6:30PM showing), but I didn’t care because it was hilarious.
Beyond comedy per se, the movie was a lot of fun. A standout for me was the musical-space dance off battle between Gosling’s Ken and Liu’s Ken. The 2001 riff at the beginning was genius, I kinda wish it hadn’t been spoiled by the trailer. I might be wrong but I read the cubicle chase scene and the subsequent kitchen table scenes as being references to The Matrix?
I think if there was the weak spot, it was the plot. The mechanics of Barbieland are confusing at best which exacerbates a lot of the issues. Ken’s arc is better than Barbie’s but it still remains overall fairly nonsensical. All of this is at least in service of Gerwig’s favorite Girl Power theming, which works better than in most of her movies due to feeling more relevant.
Despite all of that criticism I think the fact that so many of the individual scenes were fun meant that I didn’t really care if the plot was weak. Just a very fun movie!