Is the new Barbie movie for kids or adults?

If you’ve seen the trailer then you might be wondering whether or not the new Barbie movie is for kids or adults, so we’re going to try to give you all of the information that we can find. The trailer definitely pitches things to be a little bit different from any of the previous straight-to-video Barbie movies that we’ve had before, so it’s easy to be confused.

We know a little more now that the film is out and the Barbie movie rating is in for both the US and UK, but the fact that it’s live action definitely changes things a lot. In everything else we’ve had in the past from the Malibu-loving doll, things have always been targeted towards kids, so the question has never cropped up before.

Admittedly, Barbie’s figure and image conscious persona have always given parents a dilemma, but this is a whole other level. Margot Robbie takes the lead role as the classic version of the doll and she’s joined by Ryan Reynolds as the Ken Prime.

However, there are a lot of different iterations of both characters and a large portion of the cast list is made up of more Barbies and Kens. These include Emma Mackay (Sex Education, Death on the Nile), Nicole Coughlan (Bridgerton) and Dua Lipa as alternative Barbies, and Simu Liu (Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings), Nkuti Gatwa (Sex Education, Doctor Who) and Kingsley Ben-Adir (Secret Invasion) as other Kens.

When you look at the cast and trailers, there’s definitely more of an adult target than ever before. The question is where the line sits in terms of a mixed audience approach and whether or not the film is for kids that know Barbie as the beach house doll at all.

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Is the new Barbie movie for adults?

This is the easier of the two questions to answer, because there’s a lot to point to the new Barbie movie being made with adults in mind. In addition to the cast, you’ve also got the fact that the film has been directed by Greta Gerwig, who wrote the film with her own Ken, Noah Baumbach.

If you look at either of their recent back catalogue – Lady Bird and Little Women for Gerwig and White Noise, Marriage Story and Greenberg for Baumbach – it’s pretty serious stuff. There’s clearly going to be less dramatic emphasis in the new Barbie movie, but it should still take at least a little cue from this.

You can see the direction things are taking in the latest trailer above with Ken asking Barbie if he could stay over for the night and his feud with Simu Liu’s Ken. This results in a line about the two Kens beaching each other off, and it doesn’t take too much imagination to get the joke.

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If that isn’t enough to indicate that the new Barbie movie is indeed made for adults, you’ve also got the tease towards the end of the trailer. A lot of the footage that we’ve seen so far takes place in the Malibu beach house toy-land that they comes from, but it seems clear that the duo will be heading to the real world.

Apart from the fact that you can see them driving past a sign saying “real world” on it, you can also see Will Farrell in his role in the movie. This is clearly not the same environment as the earlier shots, and it seems likely that the story will start out being more fantastical than it ends up.

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This should see a lot of the action taking place in the real world with some of the real life drama that this entails. It’s a bit like a coming of age comedy with parallels to films like Big, Splash and Elf.

These are all films that bridge the divide between being made for adults and kids, but with a PG-13 age rating in the US already in, it’s looking more like the former than the latter. We’re still waiting on the UK certificate, but the equivalent to a PG-13 is normally 12 in the UK, so that’s a pretty big indicator in terms of who the Barbie movie is made for.

Is the new Barbie movie made for kids?

The answer to this is sort of, and sort of not, especially with PG-13 certificate in North America, so there’s a lot to take into account. Essentially, it looks like it’s going to work for teens and above, but maybe not for the kids that actually play with Barbie dolls still.

If you don’t want them going around saying some of the lines in the film then it might not be for you. If it does come out with a 12 rating in the UK, then it’ll be for that age and above, and there are going to be some scenes that will be unsuitable for children.

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The only UK age rating information that we have to go on at the moment is the BBFC certificate for the initial trailer, which was a teaser and didn’t include Ken’s proposition or the “beach off” jokes in the latest trailer above. The age rating for the teaser trailer in the UK was U for Universal, but we’re taking this with a pinch of salt until the details are out for teaser trailer #2.

If you look at certification for similar films you’ve got Big, which was a 12A, Splash (PG) and Elf (PG). It’s looking increasingly likely that a more grown-up tone will be in play, but we’ll know a lot more when the BBFC rates the latest trailer.

We’ll update you with more details on the new Barbie movie’s suitability for kids and adults as we get more detail. To keep tabs on the latest upcoming films you can check out our movie news section. There’s also more on the Barbie movie at the Warner Bros. website, www.warnerbros.co.uk.