Not quite awesome, but fun nonetheless

Rating: 7/10 (26 January 2015)

Who could imagine you could make a film about Lego? 'The Lego Movie' actually manages this, with a plot that is an inverse of that of 'Toy Story', and a rich host of jokes, some very funny, fired at a furious pace. The start of the movie could almost be seen as a satire of life in modern China; the romantic subplot (the figurine fancied by the hero turns out to already have a boyfriend - Bat-man - who takes some beating) seems truer to life than most romantic comedies. The presence of Bat-man is just one of many ways the film exploits the vast range of Lego figurines now available, from the ordinary to the iconic - and the film's ultimate message, that ordinary should not mean anonymous, is also a softened version of the naked positivity usually found in American kids' films. What the film lacks is the wonderful reflective pace of 'WALL-E'; it's perpetually noisy and busy, holding the attention of the younger half of its intended audience with a whirligig of flying bricks. For me, it was a little too frenetic to be truly awesome, and of course it's all advertising for the product, but it transcends its modest premise by some margin.