Review: Dr. Barbie bombs toxic masculinity, or 'How I went to the movies and started shipping Greta Gerwig and Christopher Nolan'

In a summer movie season that’s defied expectations, where beloved film properties have crashed and burned despite delivering decent, if not great, installments, we have arrived at what is arguably the main event weekend.

Any other year, I might have slapped you silly if you had told me that the defining moment for the summer box office would come down to Christopher Nolan and a 64-year-old iconic toy property.

And yet, here we are. “Barbie” versus “Oppenheimer.”

One movie is about a world that manipulates its hero into obedience and servitude by giving them a false sense of power.

The other movie is about a world that builds up and then destroys its hero as soon as they start to act more human.

Here’s the twist, though. You could apply each description to either film.

In fact, I would argue that in many ways, “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” are two sides of the same coin with a distinct through line.

They both focus on a renowned central character who is publicly shamed and dethroned. For trying to do the right thing and be a better human. By a world steeped in an outdated patriarchal ideology. By men, specifically, who believe they are above reproach and beyond consequence.

That’s right. Mind blown.

And just to further complicate matters, both movies are exceptional. As in, four stars-apiece good. As in, back the trucks up come Oscar season to allow for gold statues to be loaded accordingly.

Hold on, hold on, let me explain.

“Barbie” isn’t going to win any Academy Awards for acting, not that everyone involved doesn’t bring their A-game, but I can easily see Greta Gerwig’s original script with Noah Baumbach being considered, and I can see the film’s design and visual effects artists being worthy of inclusion in several creative categories.

“Barbie,” by far, is the unexpected, out-of-the-box (ahem) phenomenon here.

Gerwig and Baumbach have crafted a biting takedown of gender politics, consumerism and perceived stereotypes. Their script is like a candy-colored swirl of feminist ideology that gets wielded like the weapon it should be by a fabulously game cast.

No doubt it is going to piss off a lot of people. I’ll say it now, conservative media is going to have a field day trying to drum up opposition.

Why?

Because “Barbie” envisions a world where men aren’t running the show, and that world sure looks and operates a hell of a lot better than the one we’re currently living in. Barbieland, as it’s called, is an inclusive, welcoming oasis of opportunity where every woman can excel no matter what she decides she wants to be.

The male inhabitants, the Kens, only exist to look pretty. Our Ken (Ryan Gosling) is so dim, he even screws up his job assignment, which is “beach.” It’s a fascinating and timely switcheroo that captures the imagination without feeling medicinal, i.e. forced down whether you like it or not, which might still be the reaction out in rural ‘Merica.

It’s only out in the real world where the hope and opportunity that Barbieland offers has been twisted and hijacked by insecure males who believe that old-fashioned toxic masculinity is the only path forward. This is the poison that they try to pump into Barbieland by way of a naïve Ken.

Did I mention that “Barbie” is funny as hell?

That’s important to note because, friends, “Oppenheimer” is the exact opposite, as far as tone and execution, and I know many of you might actually try to watch both movies in the same day. (#TeamBarbenheimer)
Be prepared. “Oppenheimer” is terrifying. In fact, it might be the best scary movie ever made that wasn’t intended to be a horror movie.

This is essentially Nolan’s “Frankenstein,” only here it’s the doctor and not the monster that bears the brunt of society’s condemnation.

Not only is “Oppenheimer” the most expensive appeal for nuclear disarmament ever crafted, it’s also a bleak indictment into how the American government can operate like an invasive cancer, laying waste to anyone who dares try to do the right thing, which in the case of Dr. Robert Oppenheimer was to immediately start warning people about the extinction-level device he helped design and detonate.

There are at least three top acting categories that “Oppenheimer” should dominate, including Best Actor (Cillian Murphy), Best Supporting Actor (Robert Downey Jr.) and Best Supporting Actress (Emily Blunt), not to mention being considered for Best Director, Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay and pretty much every special effects category.

“Oppenheimer” feels intensely personal despite being a massive production. As such, it also feels worthy of consideration as Nolan’s definitive masterwork, even at such an early point in his career.

“Oppenheimer” is at its most chilling when you feel like Oppenheimer the character is speaking directly to you as he pleads for the U.S. government to immediately restrict and limit access to such weapons through international accords.

In this regard, “Oppenheimer” feels like a five-alarm wake-up call at a terribly unstable point in our history, which is another reason why it’s so goddamn unnerving.

Who would have thunk it. Barbie versus the bomb. Two movies so diametrically opposite and yet so aligned. And both so good.

What a crazy weird world we find ourselves living in right now.