Everything is ... OK

Rating: 6/10 (15 October 2015)

"The LEGO Movie" is a children's film in the category of toys that come to life, and may interact with their owners. Such films include the H. C. Andersen "Brave Tin Soldier" segment from Fantasia 2000, accompanied by Shostakhovich's 2nd piano concerto, or Pixar's classic "Toy Story." How does "LEGO" stack up (pun intended) against "Toy Story"? I gave the latter an 8/10, and I would say "The LEGO Movie" is at least 2 notches down. 6/10.
Of course the best part is the LEGO landscapes. The director intermingles plenty of product lines, from Star Wars to Pirates to Duplo to Cityscape. It all would have been really impressive if it had been done with real blocks by stopped motion animation, like some of the fan shorts. Alas, it's just CGI, but at least they stuck to LEGO brick rules all the way through, as far as I could tell.
The story is humdrum: an evil and not-so-special LEGO figure wants to glue everything together with superglue. In the real world, dad wants to do the same with his big basement LEGO project, so his son can't mess it up. To the rescue comes an ordinary LEGO worker figure who shows that anyone can be "special," and convinces the evil mastermind to stand down. A bit of pop culture reference is thrown in here or there, a bit of satire now and then, but none of it rises above the level of a 14 year-old bionicle user who may be watching, never mind a grizzled old moviegoer who wants to see something new.
So the movie is what it is: harmless, fluffy kid's fare, lacking the charm of stop-motion animation LEGO shorts, with a "theme song" that runs out of melody and lyrics in about 10 seconds. It's sure to spawn sequels to please the 6-10 year old crowd. And it should, they could be watching worse.
The biggest irony: the only novel idea in the film was the double-decker couch!