Enjoyable for anyone who has ever played with toys

Rating: Null/10 (9 February 2014)

Like it's title track- everything is AWESOME in The Lego Movie. Crafted with more audacity, imagination and humor than all the Transformers, GI Joes and general superhero movies put together, the Lego movie is the first 2014 blockbuster, a quick witted, heartwarming epic adventure of a nobody, who saves everybody.
The plot is a parody of a generic dystopian science fiction story (think 1984, Matrix, Star Wars), but in the world that is Legoland, creativity is everything. It is a world of endless ongoing construction, where the better builder you are, the more revered you are. Lord Business is an evil tyrant who wants everybody to follow the rules. Emmet is one such unexceptional block of plastic who does do as he is told, till he is identified as the "Special"- the one person who can overthrow the dictator and save the Lego-verse from being permanently static to ever changing and inventive. Helping him is action friendly Wyldstyle ( Elizabeth Banks) and the wizard like Vitruvius (Morgan Freeman). Meanwhile, there is a far greater power than Lord Business, called the Man Upstairs here, whose mostly unseen hand plays God in this world.
We would think a movie about building blocks will be rigid and limited in expressions, but in the hands of brilliant animators, everything is possible. Everything that you see is constructed from bricks, wheels, gears, and mini figures, even rivers and an angry ocean! And in it plays every conceivable character that is licensed to Warner Brothers studio, given a cinematic twist. So we have a extremely pompous Batman (voiced superbly by Will Arnett) who only works in black or very very dark shades of gray, saving lives but wise enough to decide that when the time is right, it is every man for himself. Superman, Green Lantern and Wonder Woman are there too, in addition to Gandalf, Dumbledore, Abraham Lincoln, Shakespeare and the entire cast of Star Wars spouting hilarious lines. Then there is a transforming pirate called Metal beard, a space cadet empress called UniKitty, (Allison Brie) who is obviously, a cross between an unicorn and a kitten, and the enforcer, called Good Cop/Bad Cop (Liam Neeson) whose swiveling head has a frown on one side and a smile on the other. I could go on and on but then the wackiness is best seen, not read.
Quality animation would come to naught without good voice talent. It is here that The Lego movie furthers its excellent standards by getting an ensemble star cast that brings wit, spontaneity, emotion, and all the laughs you could ever ask for. Some of us think animated movies are for kids, but good ones carry messages that ring true for adults too. In the case of The Lego movie, the message is about thinking outside the box. Kids or adults- anyone old enough to play with toys will enjoy this movie- 10/10