Awesome

Rating: 9/10 (15 January 2015)

Sweet, sincere and hysterically funny, "The Lego Movie" has an inspired crew working at a whirlwind pace to create dazzling visuals and very witty gags that both honor and gently lampoon the world of Lego. The result is a propulsive gem, a near-masterpiece that immediately envelops you and is able to maintain a consistency all the way through to its unexpectedly moving live-action conclusion. There's no sense in going through the plot, which is just a set-up for a series of chases through hallucinatory settings, but the film's flaw is contained there in its unnecessary send-ups of big business and religion; the movie needs them, I suppose, to give the plot its purpose, but they're not very developed and if the writers (which include the directors, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller) were trying to make points, they're not quite there. Far more successful is the relationship between adults and children from which the story germinates. But all that is secondary: with such entertaining material and such virtuosity in animation, it's hard not to absolutely fall in love. And of course, there's the song "Everything Is Awesome" which will tattoo itself onto your brain the first time you hear it.