Directed by: Phil Lord & Christopher Miller.
Written by: Phil Lord & Christopher Miller and Dan Hageman & Kevin Hageman
Starring: Chris Pratt (Emmet Brickowoski), Elizabeth Banks (Wyldstyle / Lucy),Will Arnett (Batman / Bruce Wayne), Will Ferrell (Lord Business),Morgan Freeman (Vitruvius), Liam Neeson (Bad Cop / Good Cop / Pa Cop), Alison Brie (Unikitty), Charlie Day (Benny), Nick Offerman (Metal Beard), Anthony Daniels (C-3PO), Keith Ferguson (Han Solo), Will Forte (Abraham Lincoln), Dave Franco (Wally), Jonah Hill (Green Lantern), Jake Johnson (Barry), Keegan-Michael Key (Foreman Jim), Shaquille O'Neal (Shaq), Cobie Smulders (Wonder Woman), Channing Tatum (Superman), Billy Dee Williams (Lando).
You can criticize The Lego
Movie as being one long commercial for the toy company if you want to – you wouldn’t
even really be wrong in doing so. But to me, the movie is so entertaining that
I didn’t really care that it was, in part, an advertisement for toys. The same
charge could be leveled at any number of Pixar and Disney movies – really any animated
film over the years – that companies use to extend their “brand”. What matters
to me is what is onscreen, and what is onscreen in The Lego Movie is clever,
funny, well-animated and a lot of fun from beginning to end. While The Lego
Movie is not quite in the same league as the Toy Story movies – it comes close –
and shares with those films a sense of childhood wonder – and examines how children
love their toys, and how adults look back at those toys with nostalgia. Yes,
the film is in part an advertisement for Lego – but it’s a great one, and it
never takes itself too seriously. It’s one of the best animated features to
come out of Hollywood in a while.
The story revolves around Emmet
(voiced by Chris Pratt) – a regular Lego man with features so generic he looks
like every other Lego man. Chris works in construction, where the most
important thing is to follow the instructions. The world is run by President
(or Lord) Business (Will Ferrell) who ensures that who wants everyone to follow
their instructions at every point in their lives. He is a blissfully happy dolt
– enjoying chain restaurants, the sitcom “Where’s My Pants?” and the song “Everything
is Awesome” – which I fear will be stuck in my head for the rest of my life. Then
Emmet does one tiny thing not in the instructions – he doesn’t immediately
report a trespasser on the construction site – and this leads to a series of
events that ends with Emmet on the run with the pretty, kickass “Masterbuilder”
Wildstyle (Elizabeth Banks) – into different Lego worlds he never knew existed,
all in an attempt to stop Lord Business from unleashing a horrible weapon known
as the “Kragle” on Taco Tuesday. Along the way, he’ll meet pretty much every
Lego character imaginable.
Perhaps the best thing about
The Lego Movie is the freewheeling nature of the plot. Not to give much away,
but The Lego Movie is one perhaps the only children’s movie I can think of that
actually whose plot feels like something a child would make up while playing
with their toys. This is a state well-known to most of me, who as a child would
think nothing of mixing and matching characters from different toy lines in my
elaborately thought through action figure sessions that would go on for hours.
In this world, it makes perfect sense that Batman, Superman and Green Lantern
would interact with Gandalf, Dumbledore, Shaquille O’Neal and Abraham Lincoln
with a rocket chair. It opens up an endless world of possibilities that are not
necessarily based on logic, but on imagination – and that is ultimately what
the movie is about. It can be great to make the Lego’s as they are “supposed”
to be made by following the instructions and building elaborate castles,
spaceships, etc. pre-designed by others. It is even better when you ignore the
instructions and build your own elaborate contraptions that only exist in the
child’s building them head.
The animation is stunning as
well. People have been using Lego for animation for years, and directors Phil
Lord and Christopher Miller used what went before them wisely. While the movie
is computer generated, it is certainly inspired by those stop-motion Lego
movies we have all seen and they find endlessly inventive ways to create things
out of Lego that you would think impossible – water for instance.
Yes, The Lego Movie is in a way
a feature length commercial for Lego – and has been designed for maximum
nostalgia factor for people like me – old enough to play with Lego, and having
young children of our own, who will, the movie hopes, rush out and buy Lego for
(my daughter is 2 ½ so still a little young for Lego – although she loves her
Duplo Princess castle – and yes, Duplo gets references and got from me perhaps
the biggest single laugh of the entire movie). But The Lego Movie doesn’t feel
like a feature length commercial, because Lord and Miller have done something
inventive and original with it. Should we really expect anything more?
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