a barbie movie can only go one of two ways, and both are indeed awful:
1) they'll continue with barbie's 1950's era fantasy: a vapid blond that just wants to have simplistic fun. awful for obvious reasons.
2) they attempt to rehabilitate barbie's image as a supposedly modern, intelligent, empowered woman - ignoring her history of fostering horrible mental and physical stereotypes of women. i suspect this is the tact they'll take.
you have to wonder who this movies is targeting. neither my 7 y.o. daughter nor any of her friend have any interest in barbie. as far as i know they don't even own any (i can confirm this after spending the past week of winter break supervising play-dates). if they're going to tap into mom's nostalgia for her childhood toys... not sure how that is going to work.