The Lego Movie ***1/2

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One Liner Review:

A movie pumped full of energy and adventurous spirit, this one works on multiple levels, including some pretty terrific humor.

Brief Review:

The Lego Movie is a lot of fun. it’s got the humor, the energy, the action and excitement, and pretty much anything else you can ask for. the storyline might not be great, as it is basically the matrix meets the sword in the stone, about finding who is “the one,” (known as the special in this movie), but that’s okay, because this movie is so adventurous and ambitious that a storyline we’ve seen before, told with different kinds of characters and a unique setting actually makes a lot of sense. and to make things even better, the story actually gets better by its end, turning in ways that are completely unpredictable and creative. there’s a lot to like about this movie, and it really is equal parts smart and funny.

Review:

The Lego Movie is a lot of fun. it’s got the humor, the energy, the action and excitement, and pretty much anything else you can ask for. the storyline might not be great, as it is basically the matrix meets the sword in the stone, about finding who is “the one,” (known as the special in this movie), but that’s okay, because this movie is so adventurous and ambitious that a storyline we’ve seen before, told with different kinds of characters and a unique setting actually makes a lot of sense. and to make things even better, the story actually gets better by its end, turning in ways that are completely unpredictable and creative. there’s a lot to like about this movie, and it really is equal parts smart and funny.

 

The Lego movie is a lot of fun. it’s not far off from toy story, with the idea of who the different characters are and how they can randomly all end up mixed together in the same universe. only this one throws them into an adventurous world with spaceships and magic, whereas toy story tried to keep everything realistic (minus the toys talking, of course.) in that movie, it was about how toys could have their own lives while the human world was coexisting all around them. the lego movie doesn’t care about the human world. it has it’s own world to play in.

 

at the start of this movie we hear a prophecy by a wizard (voiced by morgan freeman), and then watch as lord business (will ferrell) turns into a demon-like creature and kicks the wizard off a cliff. by turns into a demon-like creatre, all i really mean is that he suddenly gets much taller (extra legos are attached to his legs), and flames start coming out of his head (plastic flame pieces get pressed onto two sides of his helmet). that’s the cool thing about this movie…everything that we see exists out of legos. that means even water and smoke is somehow made out of legos. it’s pretty amazing some of the things they come up with.

 

the prophecy that the wizard was speaking of involved someone known as the special. this person is unknown, but he will rise up and basically be the mesiah who saves them all. that plot might seem like the matrix, and maybe it is, but since this movie is completely a comedy and is filled with funny and out there ideas, we can easily look past the basic mission premise being something we’ve seen before.

 

we meet emmett, (voiced by the very funny chris pratt), a construction worker, who is not very popular. he’s a loner and an outsider and dreams of being well-liked by the other construction workers. one day they all leave him to go out for a drink, and he stays behind at the construction site. he sees a girl who is not supposed to be there, and confronts her only to find out that she is beautiful. at this point, emmett’s mouth falls opens as he freezes, hanging onto the last thing he was saying, dragging out the same note for a long period of time.

 

this girl is wyldstyle (elizabeth banks), and she is trying to get her hands on a mysterious brick that is supposedly magic. emmett finds the brick and picks it up, and it is kind of like the sword in the stone, with this guy easily lifting it, not realizing that this means he is one of a kind. soon, wyldstyle is convincing herself that, no matter how unlikely it seems, emmett is the special and she starts hanging around him. the two of them, with guidance from the wizard, head out for their quest to stop lord business.

 

Along the way, they meet and are joined by many fun characters including a whole bunch of superheroes. there’s batman, superman, and the green lantern, all voiced by prominent movie stars. batman is will arnett, superman is channing tatum, and green lantern is jonah hill. batman is the character who gets the biggest part here, since he is the boyfriend of wyldstyle. arnett does the perfect job of voicing him as a pretty scummy, self-centered guy who would leave his girlfriend in a heart-beat if it meant trading up for something better. at one point he even does this, joining up with the characters of star wars.

 

the movie takes emmett and his friends to many different locations, including a colorful candyland kind of place called cloud cuckoo land. this is a rainbow kind of spot in the clouds that we’ve been hearing about throughout the movie, and when they finally get there, it does not disappoint. one cool character who they meet there is a sort of child-like pony, made out of legos to the point where her head is a flat rectangle. on the topic of ponies and horses in the lego world, when a character rides a horse, his feet go right in the grove of the horse’s back, the way a real lego toy would fit in. that’s the kind of approach this movie has to lego pieces. everything looks the same way it would if it was made of legos in real life.

 

the movie works because it is funny at all times and puts humor ahead of everything else. emmett has the idea, for example, for a bunk bed couch, where people can watch tv together from two different levels. this invention is mentioned many times throughout the movie, and each time the characters talk about how terrible of an idea it is, with people having to watch tv through the dangling legs of the people who are sitting on the couch above them. we even get to see this invention get some use.

 

while the humor is what drives the movie, the story isn’t anything special. that’s okay though, because there is just so much else going on. and when it comes time for the ending, suddenly the story really does take over and we get some surprises and twists that are totally unpredictable. without giving anything away, let’s just say this movie suddenly goes into a whole other world, that one would have thought was off the table. suddenly the playing field has changed.

 

the lego movie is lots of fun for all kinds of reasons. obviously the humor is strong, and the computer effects ideas are very impressive, but it’s the energy that makes this movie standout more than anything else. like the wolf of wall street only without the sex and drugs and cursing, this movie is definitely made for the technology driven a.d.d world where everything moves fast and is at your finertips, at the very moment you think it up. the jokes come quickly, and there is little time for anything emotional, (unlike the way the old disney animated films used to do it), and it is the high levels of energy that drive the entire thing.

 

 

 

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