I'm surprised as you are that "The LEGO Movie" is a thing that exists. Not that LEGO had a movie made, they've done a bunch of stuff over the years, what I'm surprised by is that a feature length LEGO movie got made and had a theatrical release. I don't usually cover family movies on here, and that's for a reason. I don't want to look like a creep. I only saw this one because I wanted to know how it turned out. How is it? Well...
Story: Our main character is Emmet (Chris Pratt), a Lego construction worker with no personality of his own. He lives in a generic Lego city with no personality of it's own. He meets a wizard named Vitruvius who reveals to him that the city he lives in is one of many themed Lego worlds that once coexisted in mixed up harmony, but were separated into rigid logical sense by President Business (Will Ferrel), who now plans to use a super weapon to glue the universe together into his vision of perfection*. Now Emmet must work with a woman named Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks), a Lego Batman (Will Arnett), and a 1980's spaceman (Charlie Day) to stop Lord Business by using the Piece of Resistance, which has become stuck to Emmet's back, and restore creativity to it's rightful place.
If that description felt like a generic story, that's because the film is attempting to parody a lot of things. In particular the hero's journey, kids films, blatantly commercial blockbusters, and the function of Lego as a creative tool. Let's use The Matrix as a comparison and see if I can make sense of this. Emmet is Neo, Wyldstyle is Trinity, Vitruvius is Morpheus, Liam Neeson's Cop is Cypher if he worked for the machines, and Lord Buisness is Agent Smith. I'm not sure that the film entirely works, but it is trying.
Presentation: This is a real strength for The Lego Movie, if it does anything right, it's presentation. The animators went into painstaking detail to create a Lego universe that doesn't just borrow the Lego aesthetic, but also includes all the scuffs, scratches, smudges, and general imperfections which hint at their origins as plastic. One where literally everything (even steam, fire, and water) is made out of Lego. Lego was a big part of my childhood and I can tell you that this was an accurate representation of the toys, at least in visual terms. It's trying to look like a homemade stop-motion Lego fan-film, and the resemblance is spot on.
The tone of the film is firmly tongue-in-cheek, like I said, it's going for parody. Any possible satire going on is probably going to fly over the kid's heads, but that won't make it unenjoyable for the adults in the audience.
Cast: Chris Pratt does well as Emmet, Elizabeth Banks does well as Wyldstyle, Will Arnett plays a fantastic parody of the Nolan Batman, Lego Batman turns the super serious Dark Knight into the guy trying way too hard to look cool. Allison Brie is enjoyable as Unikitty, and Charlie Day is fantastic as Benny the Spaceman. If you noticed all the pop culture references in the trailers, those are there because Lego has the license to make toys for most of them. They'll either work for you or not, and I'm just sort of ambivalent to them. Overall, you can tell that everyone put a lot of effort into this movie, and it has a sense of childlike wonder that I find charming.
In conclusion, it is a serviceable film, and if you have a kid that's super into Lego, it will quickly become their favorite movie for a while. It will also probably keep you interested. Maybe it was just over-hyped by all the people who saw it before I did, but I can't know for sure. General consensus is that it's an instant classic, I'd call it a 7.5/10.
Have a nice day.
Greg.B
*I relate so very much. He's essentially trying to create aspie heaven.
P.S. I've heard that Monuments Men is enjoyable, but not remarkable. That it's the kind of movie cable channels would run to fill their airtime. I will talk about it once it comes to DVD. If you are an adult, go see that instead, It will probably make you feel good.
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