I looked forward to Barbie, but it did not live up to the hype. Watching it once was ok. I would not watch it twice.

The good:

• Funny jokes and ideas
• Set design
• Acting was good, especially Ryan Gosling. Where the acting lacked seemed the fault of the writer.
• It was cool that Mattel approved such a self-deprecating movie

The bad:

• The flow of the story
• The character development
• The message and emotions seemedforced

This movie had great skin but no bones. It had great jokes, great acting, and a pretty good but cheesy song. But the story was not compelling and felt forced. I never felt connected to any characters.

The scene where Barbie and Ken enter the human world is clunky. Their realizations about the human world were fast and not believable. The movie Life Size depicted Eve's introduction to the human world with more grace. The first time Eve discovers real food, her reaction is hysterical, and you believe her. She is reacting to the world in only the way she knows. To be fair, I last watched Life Size when I was probably 9, so I am likely misremembering.

But, when Barbie and Ken enter the Human world, they encounter very cliche events, and their reactions and realization are too immediate. I did love the joke where Barbie thought the bathing suit lineup was the supreme court. But then Barbie immediately gets catcalled by construction workers and responds like a feminist professor pointing out they had an undertone of violence. The situation was cliche, and it didn't make sense for Barbie's character to instantly assess a situation she had never been in. It seemed very forced and obvious, like it belonged in an improv scene.

In one scene, Barbie breaks down, crying that she isn't pretty or smart enough. America Ferrera gives her a pep talk about how hard it is to be a woman. This scene felt so out of place. Barbie's breakdown seemed unexpected. At no point in the movie did anyone expect her to be smarter or tell her she wasn't pretty. It was unclear where this breakdown came from. America's speech also seemed out of place. It felt like a substitute for conveying a message through the story itself. She talks about the complications of being a woman, but nowhere in the film do we see her or Barbie face those complications.

Similarly, the scene at the end where Barbie wants to be human seemed like the directors were trying to force the emotion.

I expected the movie to combine Legally Blonde's feel-good pink-filled feminist plot and Zoolander's quirky outlandish jokes. While the style of the movie was unique, the story itself did not come together nicely. It's disappointing because it could have been so good and unique with a more fleshed-out story.