I’ll admit I was apprehensive going into The Lego Movie. I’d read several very positive reviews of it, and it had gotten a great rating on rotten tomatoes, but considering that Wall-E and Toy Story 3 also got rave reviews, I was still a little hesitant to spend my money on seeing it in theaters. But after asking one of my good friends’ opinions, I decided I would go see it. As it turned out, my whole family ended up going together, and we all really enjoyed the film. While many of the jokes seem rather wanting in the trailers and commercials, it is mostly due to lack of the whole context of the joke, or it is simply because the editors changed and added dialogue for their own purposes.
The Lego Movie follows the tale of Emmet Brickowski, an ordinary rules-following construction worker who longs to fit in with the rest of his construction co-workers. On the surface, it would seem that he has a perfect life, living in the beautiful city of Bricksburg, governed by President Business, “president of Octan and the World”, watches the latest episode of “Where are my Pants?!” every morning, buys $40 coffee as he drives to work, listens to “Everything is Awesome” for hours at a time, and follows every rule in his instruction booklet on how to be likeable, but on the inside, Emmet is an outcast because of his extreme conformity. One day, Emmet stumbles upon the fabled piece of resistance, which could be used to stop the evil Lord Business from unleashing the Kragle (a smudged container of Krazy Glue) on the citizens of Bricksburg in order to induce a state of sameness on the world. Wyldstyle, a member of the Master Builders, a group of expert Lego builders (as their name suggests) who plan to take down Lord Business, takes Emmet to Vitruvius, another master builder, who had lost his sight long ago trying to protect the Kragle, believing him to be “the special”, a savior who will aid them in their battle against Lord Business , only to find out that he has never had an original thought in his life.
[The Special] …will be the greatest, most talented, most interesting, most important person of all times. And it’s true. Because it rhymes.
Vitruvius, still believing Emmet to be
the Special, gathers the rest of the master builders to formulate a plan to
defeat Lord Business and so that Emmet could give “an eloquent speech”. Emmet and the other main characters do try to
infiltrate Lord Business’s tower fortress, but I won’t spoil the end of the
film for my limited audience.
Probably
the most striking feature of the movie was the incredible attention to
detail. While the film was animated
using a computer, and was not actually stop-motion, the animators went to great
lengths to ensure that everything seen on screen is or appears to be made of
Lego elements. Everything from Lord
Buisness’s traveling fortress to Bricksburg’s bustling streets and buildings to
the scenic pastures and landscapes of the Old West and Middle Zealand is
animated to look as though it was made completely out of Legos. There are also some other realistic touches
in the movie, examples including a crack in 1980-something space guy Benny’s
helmet, the chewed up lollipop that serves as Vitruvius’s walking stick, and Lord Buisness’s
collection of relics from the human world.
The only time that Lego elements are not
used is the few minutes of live action in the film after Emmet falls out of the
Lego world. The other amazing visual
feature in the film was definitely the unique animation style which was clearly
meant to mimic stop-motion animation used with real Legos. Not once in the entire movie do the Lego
figures move contrary to what their Lego limbs would allow if the film were made with real Legos.
But
the obvious attraction of the film is the humorous dialogue and slapstick. The characters many quirky personalities,
from Batman’s obnoxious egotism to Unikitty’s obnoxious optimism to Good
cop/Bad cop’s noisy ranting and Lord Business’s mispronunciation of near
everything, are a main aspect of the humor in the movie. Several running jokes are incorporated
throughout the film as well. Whenever
any of the characters are planning something or arranging a meeting, they
always set the meeting time in increments of seconds.
Lord
Business: Have Bad Cop meet me in my office in 37 seconds.
Vitruvius: Meet me upstairs in ten seconds.
Bad
Cop also repeatedly kicks a chair around to the tune of “darn, darn, darn,
darn, darney-darn” whenever Emmet and Wyldstyle get away; another running joke
in the movie. Emmet’s attempts to gain Wyldstyle’s
love are another hilarious part of the movie.Vitruvius: Meet me upstairs in ten seconds.
Wyldstyle: [about Batman's song] That's real music, Emmet. It's dark and
brooding.
Emmet: Hey, I can be dark and brooding too - Guys,
look, a rainbow!
Emmet: You’re an amazing person, Wyldstyle, and if your boyfriend
can’t see that, he’s as blind as… a person… whose eyes stopped working.
Perhaps the only downfall in The Lego Movie is that while it toyed (heh, get it?) with many interesting themes, morals, ideas, and so on, it didn’t really follow or examine any of them very closely, choosing instead to hop from one theme to the next. A few religious ideas were tossed around for a couple minutes in the movie with “The Man Upstairs”, and some interesting dystopian themes were incorporated through Lord Business’s desire for extreme conformity and sameness and the brainwashing of Bricksburg’s citizens, but none of them are managed very well or carried all the way through the film. Although some credit has to be given to the movie for actually having some interesting themes, which is more than you can say for most of today’s animated children’s films. I also would have preferred the film to be slightly longer, as it did seem a little short when all was said and done, but that’s just a minor point in the grand scheme of things.
Perhaps the only downfall in The Lego Movie is that while it toyed (heh, get it?) with many interesting themes, morals, ideas, and so on, it didn’t really follow or examine any of them very closely, choosing instead to hop from one theme to the next. A few religious ideas were tossed around for a couple minutes in the movie with “The Man Upstairs”, and some interesting dystopian themes were incorporated through Lord Business’s desire for extreme conformity and sameness and the brainwashing of Bricksburg’s citizens, but none of them are managed very well or carried all the way through the film. Although some credit has to be given to the movie for actually having some interesting themes, which is more than you can say for most of today’s animated children’s films. I also would have preferred the film to be slightly longer, as it did seem a little short when all was said and done, but that’s just a minor point in the grand scheme of things.
Would
I recommend The Lego Movie? Yes, I absolutely would. It might not be a big-budget, awesome special-effects film made especially to be
seen in theaters, but I still was glad I took the opportunity to see it on the big
screen (and get some delicious, good, mediocre movie theater popcorn). All in all, I think it’s safe to say that
everything was awesome – except maybe for “Everything is Awesome” that was
pretty lame…
Grade Rating (for The Lego Movie): A-
Grade Rating (for "Everything is Awesome"): C
Grade Rating (for "Everything is Awesome"): C
I
can see why Lord Business used this song to brainwash all his subjects…
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