Breaking Barbi (2019)

Table of Contents

Cringe: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Enjoyment: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

The poster art for the 2019 film, Breaking Barbi. It features various characters shooting laser weapons. The background is a trippy blue and pink space, with some aliens and fighter planes in the background. At the top of the image a flying saucer is shooting additional laser beams.

A Tinder date gone astray leaves famous fitness selfie queen, Barbi, lost in the wilderness trying to survive despite Homeland Security, alien death rays and zero cell service.

Introduction
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Breaking Barbi is a 2019 comedy film directed by Edward G. Negron, who has worked on a handful of productions, whether as a director or editor. It features Vera Vanguard as Barbara Dolly Brennan (Barbi for short), a famous influencer in whatever wacky universe this film is set in. As you might guess from all this, Breaking Barbi is very low budget production.

An image of the main character, Barbi, and her boyfriend, Jake, outdoors. Barbi is wearing all pink, and sitting on a picnic table while looking intently at the cell phone in her hands. Meanwhile, Jake is carrying a large hiking backpack and standing at the side of the table. On the table he has arranged an array of different camping/hiking supplies and is currently examining one of them. — Barbi and ~~Ken~~ Jake, about to embark on their adventure

Let’s set some expectations first. This really looks like a purposeful spoof film, probably with some social commentary about how vapid influencer culture is. There’s definitely going to be some kind of aliens, probably with bottom of the barrel special effects. Wrapping all this will likely be humour, with varying degrees of success. With that in mind, we can judge Breaking Barbi a success if it’s funny and manages to hold our attention for the runtime.

Plot
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This review contains minor plot spoilers

Breaking Barbi open with a credits sequence where the main character, Barbi, introduces herself with a monologue about her life, and how hard it is to be famous. This is will be a common theme throughout the film, resulting in the audience hearing more of this internal monologue than traditional dialogue. She is voiced like a “valley girl”, in a stream of consciousness kind of way, replete with influencer and pop culture references. As Vera VanGuard is listed as writer on the project, I like to imagine she wrote most of this. While it seems like an annoying idea at first, it actually works here, and was my favourite part of the film.

An image of Barbi in the wilderness, taking a selfie with a traditional cute pose. — As you might have guessed, she takes a lot of selfies until her battery runs out

After the credits sequence, we’re introduced to Barbi’s current boyfriend, Jake. The two are going free climbing and hiking up in the mountains, for which Barbi is woefully unprepared for. Barbi spends most of the trip out fantasizing about Jake, who’s attractive in that body-builder fitness guru kind of way. When they actually get to climbing, though, it turns out Barbi is a master climber and Jake, well, gets crushed to death by a rock she dislodges.

An image taken from below, with Barbi standing at the edge of cliff and looking down over the edge. She looks distressed, phone in hand, like she just did something really embarrassing. — Oops

This leaves Barbi stranded at the top of the cliff, where there is no cell signal. Rather than go back the way she came, she kind of just starts to wander in the woods, quickly getting lost. The first person she happens upon is a wounded man who claims to be from Homeland Security. He gets mauled by some alien-looking claw while Barbi takes selfies, before the two part ways. This sets the tone for the rest of the film, with Barbi walking into all kinds of weird situations and not giving a shit unless there’s a hot guy around. There’s a killer clown, medieval sword battles, laser fights, which are all arguably hallucinations from eating way too many mysterious mushrooms in the forest.

An image of Barbi riding a My Little Pony stuffed animal in the forest. A third of the screen is taken up a rainbow overlay. — This happens

Review
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Breaking Barbi ended up being a lot more entertaining and engaging than I had expected, it even has a somewhat coherent story! Vera VanGuard does an excellent job as Barbi, portraying the most bimbo of all bimbos to ever exist, who just happens to also be a superhero of sorts. Her persistent inner dialogue is what really makes the film, without it the entire thing would probably have been a slog to get through.

A very fit and muscular man is working out. He is wearing tactical army pants, belt, and boots, but not shirt. He looks very wet and shiny. — There are several scenes like this, for lovers of the jacked-up bodybuilder aesthetic

I want to give the rest of the team some credit, though. The action sequences are all incredibly cheesy, entertaining, and self-aware. They’re mostly all puncuated by upbeat electronic music, which helps to set the ridiculous tone. The camera work and editing, as well, are about as good as you can expect from something like this, though I do wish they had a better quality camera, as a lot of shots just look low resolution or are out of focus.

Barbi, wearing a pink bikini, stands beside a small waterfall in the forest. She looks very happy, as if she is dancing or posing for a social media video. — To balance out the manliness

Taken as a whole, Barbi is a very entertaining hour and half and absolutely not a disappointment. Some of the social commentary and humour aspects do end up falling a little flat, but otherwise it fully satisfies or exceeds expectations. I’ll be keeping an eye out to see what Edward G. Negron is working on next!

Cringe 4/5: It’s intentionally cringy. You’re basically listening to a hyperbolic bimbo’s thoughts the entire time.

Enjoyment 4/5: Very fun adventure that made me laugh out loud more than a few times. You never know what’s going to happen next.

Recommended Audience: Trash Cinephiles

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