‘Barbie’ doesn’t live up to the hype

First of all, let’s state the obvious, “Barbie” is a 1-hour and 54-minute advertisement for a Mattel toy. After months of hype, the often boring and mediocre live-action “Barbie” has arrived, narrated in silky tones by Helen Mirren and amusingly riffing on the 1968 film landmark “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

“Barbie” was directed by Greta Gerwig (“Little Women”) and co-written by her and her indie film-making husband Noah Baumbach (“The Squid and the Whale”). It begins with Barbie (Margot Robbie) living in the pink, idyllic, matriarchal “Barbieland” where we first meet her and her friends based on the many iterations of “Barbie,” including a President Barbie (Issa Rae), residing in a pink White House. In the form of Robbie, Barbie is very nice and polite, a Stepford wife in the making, you might say. She is “Stereotypical Barbie.” She has diverse friends, including Black, Asian, Latina and trans Barbies.

The original Barbie is admittedly an impossible standard for most little girls, and yet little girls have seen themselves in the groundbreaking “adult doll,” which was created in 1959 by Mattel co-founder Ruth Handler in sufficient numbers that Barbie has become a cultural phenomenon, spawning billions of dollars in dolls and doll accessories, such as a similarly-blonde-and-toned male doll named Ken (Ryan Gosling). With his bleached locks, defined pecs and amplified abs Ken looks like nothing more than a “Magic Mike”-ready male stripper. Among his fellow Ken dolls is a back-flipping one played by super-hero film star Simu Liu (“Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings”).

In scenes reminiscent of Olivia Wilde’s dud “Don’t Worry Darling,” Barbie, Ken and their friends and his rivals romp in Barbie’s pink universe, all happy and content, including a “withdrawn by Mattel” pregnant doll named Midge. They gather on a pink beach with solid, plastic waves that Ken bounces off of, until Barbie inexplicably starts asking questions about the inevitability of death.

In existential crisis, Barbie is sent to visit “Weird Barbie” (Kate McKinnon, trying her best with the material). “Weird Barbie” was changed by the troubled girl that owned her. She sees similar traits in Barbie, who travels to the “real world” with Ken in tow. In the real world, Barbie is sexually harassed by white construction workers (talk about stereotypes) on Venice Beach. She tries to explain to them that she has “no genitals.” Meanwhile, back at Mattel, the CEO (Will Ferrell) has learned that a Barbie and Ken have gone AWOL and must be returned to Barbieland. He and a group of his yes-men go in search of the fugitive dolls. None of what they do or say is very funny. While there is a shout-out to a “Proust Barbie,” the truth is Gerwig and Baumbach take many of their cues from Carlo Collodi, the author of “Pinocchio,” and the classic Disney animated film based on the book.

As Ken, who dresses like the late Liberace in a big white mink coat, Gosling has the best material to work with. But that is not enough. Neither he nor Robbie is a professional dancer, so the production numbers are not great. “Barbie” is a musical at least half the time, featuring songs such as “Journey to the Real World,” “”What Was I Made for” and “Man I Am.” The score by Academy Award-winners Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt (“A Star Is Born”), cinematography by Rodrigo Prieto (“The Wolf of Wall Street”) and production design by Sarah Greenwood (“Beauty and the Beast”) are all first-rate as expected. But there is just not enough plot for almost two hours. Robbie is fully invested, but lame jokes fall dead at her high-heeled feet. This much-heralded “Barbie” is a big bore.

(“Barbie” contains off-color and sexually-suggestive language)

“Barbie”

Rated PG-13. At the AMC Boston Common, AMC South Bay and suburban theaters.  Grade: C+