I Came, I Saw, I Barbie'd

Prepare yourself for a hot (lukewarm?) take.

When Greta Gerwig’s Barbie — the live-action adaptation of the Mattel doll who first hit shelves in 1959 — opens, we are treated to a nod to Stanley Kubrick's “the dawn of man” sequence from 2001: A Space Odyssey. I’d watched it already, though, in the teaser trailer released seven months earlier. John Cena’s surprise cameo? Seen it on Twitter, quote tweeted to oblivion. When Ryan Gosling’s Ken sang his 11 o’clock ballad “I’m Just Ken,” I was surprised at my ability to recall every word. That’s because I’d seen this already, too, in an online exclusive a week earlier and again while we waited in the theater before the film. (Yes, they played a clip of the film in the lead-up to seeing the film.) In fact, most of the film — the gags, the fashions, the twists — had been spoiled throughout the show’s endless runway of promotion. So much so that the take-off almost, in the end, felt like a mere afterthought.