"Make sure it's black, or really dark gray" - Batman

Rating: 10/10 (28 April 2014)

A They Live for our times, but also with parts (or, ahem, 'blocks') of The Matrix, Kung-fu Panda, 1984 and every conceivable franchise that you and your kid would want to see in a LEGO movie. Innovative animation mixing stop-motion and CGI (where it stops and starts I don't know, that's the charm and wonder of the technique, like Robot Chicken if it had a budget, which one of the guys who does the show worked on the film so that makes sense), and almost non-stop comedy - even when it's not all huge laugh-out-loud laughs, there's endless cleverness but always with a goofy wink and slapstick. It's the Looney Tunes for our times. The ending isn't perfect - the message of everyone being "special" I think gets muddled with "everyone be creative", which aren't the same things though the directors try for both ways. But that's a nit-pick really; this is on the level of popular-innovative entertainment as Toy Story.