When everyone first heard that a Lego movie was coming out there were certainly a lot of grumbles. The news had come on the heels of other toy properties being adapted like Battleship and Stretch Armstrong and, at the time, mostly everyone that followed movie news rode it off as a studio cash grab that would likely fail. Then the first trailer for The Lego Movie came out and it showed a ton of promise, looking highly entertaining and very funny, especially since the voice cast included Morgan Freeman, Liam Neeson, Will Ferrell, Will Forte, Jonah Hill, Elizabeth Banks, Alison Brie, Charlie Day, Will Arnett, Jake Johnson, Channing Tatum, Nick Offerman and Chris Pratt. These people were voicing an extremely diverse set of characters from superheroes like Batman Superman and Green Lantern to crazy pirates, construction workers, old school Lego astronauts, Unikitty, Gandalf and so many more fun characters. It was after seeing the first trailer and then other marketing materials in movie theaters that made me add this film to one of my most anticipated of the year and a film that I wanted to see badly. The result: The Lego Movie is awesome and it’s going to be a box office smash.
In The Lego Movie we are introduced to Emmot Brickowski, an average, rule-abiding construction worker living a simple life in a world run by President Business. Unfortunately, as happy as Emmet appears to be he doesn’t have any friends and soon, after being ignored by his co-workers at the construction yard, he finds a beautiful woman named WyldStyle looking for an item which Emmet accidentally finds instead, fulfilling the prophecy that “the special” MasterBuilder has revealed himself and will help the other MasterBuilders save the Lego world from Lord Business’ (evil alias of President Busines) tyrannical rule and his plan to end their world as they know it.
Everything about The Lego Movie is purely awesome, and I’m not saying that just because there is a catchy song that plays over and over in the movie called “Everything is Awesome.” No, my friends, The Lego Movie is awesome because it’s original, highly entertaining, and extremely funny. Furthermore, if it was able to transport three twenty something guys to an entirely new world on a Saturday morning at 10:30am in NYC after only getting four hours of sleep. If it left us smiling and wanting more, it’ll do the same for everyone who was in better shape than we were.
The Lego Movie could have easily been a completely failure like Battleship or a generic animated adventure like The Nut Job as it’s a little hard to pull an interesting story out of a toy that isn’t story based, but instead the film worked and is now an early contender for Best Animated Film of the Year. The reason a Lego movie can work to begin with is because it’s an imaginative property. When I was a kid, and I’m sure it’s the case for everyone that’s played with Legos as a kid, I used to build worlds and other creations out of Legos and have adventures with them. It’s the childlike imagination of world building and infinite possibilities that drives The Lego Movie forward, propelling Emmet to become the MasterBuilder he was destined to be.
The film is directed and written by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, the same duo who brought us Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and 21 Jump Street, and The Lego Movie shows how easily the two can jump back and forth from family friendly animation to a raunchy live-action comedy without losing any entertainment value. It’s one of the reasons, after seeing the initial trailer that my anticipation grew. These guys understand how to find the right balance when it comes to story and comedy and, once again, they didn’t fail at entertaining the masses.
There are so many clever aspects to the film that it would be tough to list them all bu
t it would also ruin some of the surprises for you as well, so I’ll mention only a few. Firstly, everything looks and feels like Legos. All the characters move the way Legos actually move, occasionally there are hilarious cutaway sound effects as if a child was playing with them as toys, they have divisions based on characters with imagination to build whatever they want and those that like to follow the instructions to the T, reflecting the real world. All the effects are Lego based too, like when you see fire they use the shimmery fire Lego pieces or when you see water it’s a million single blue pieces moving in harmony. The best part about all of this is that the movie works in 3D too! A rarity and one where I might even consider saying it’s worth seeing in 3D since it adds depth to the vast and impressively colorful Lego world.
The best part of the movie has to be the voice cast and script. The dialogue coupled with amazing animation and physical comedy is hilarious and when you realize who is voicing what, everything becomes exponentially funnier. For example, Liam Neeson plays good cop/bad cop and it’s so funny because it comes across as his character from Taken in PG form meets a nice Irish fella who wants to get the bad guys. Another example is when you realize Charlie Day voices Benny, the 70s astronaut who is obsessed with building a space ship. He has a 30 second montage that nearly made me pass out from laughter.
The Lego Movie is an early contender not only for Best Animated Film of the year, but I have a feeling it is going to end up in my top 10 list come the end of 2014. It’s an extremely entertaining movie that will easily capture the hearts and minds of everyone that sees it, especially for those of whom have played with Legos at some point in their life. I had no complaints about the movie as I left the theater and desperately want to see it again, that’s how much I loved it.
Rating: Everything about this movie is awesome and the inner child in you will thank you for seeing it (9/10)
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