A Heavily Involved Film - Both Good and Bad

Rating: 6/10 (9 April 2014)

The 1949 popular line of construction toys – Lego – has made it on to the big screen. It only took 65 years. Actually, that's not true: Lego-based series such as Bionicle, Hero Factory, Lego Star Wars, the short animation of Monty Python and the Holy Grail in Lego, and the film Lego Batman: The Movie - DC Super Heroes Unite, have all preceded The Lego Movie, so the concept is not exactly fresh. It is however, the first big Hollywood blockbuster – only a matter of time – and it won't be the last (The Lego Movie 2 has been approved for release in 2017).
There are few iconic films these days born from original ideas – most are recycled ideas given new angles. So because the recycled style of film is what audiences have come to expect, we are instinctively impressed when an idea has been effectively reconditioned. The Lego Movie falls in to that 'automatically stimulated' category for many viewers, because yes, it's directed, produced and written well, but it's not new. Here's why it warrants three stars out of five (or 6/10 for IMDb).
No animated film is without a villain, conflict, and some degree of fighting, but The Lego Movie's violence stood out – most noticeably the scene where Vitruvius is decapitated, along with the arrest of several civilians who are electrocuted, shouting in pain, not to mention the whole 'destruction of the city' theme, and the plan to destroy everyone with permanent glue.
While all violence is 'Lego violence' intended to be taken ever so lightly, and is predictably, the imagination of Finn - a real person (Jadon Sand) - it's the fact it is the imagination of a child which is of concern. Will Ferrell's eight-year-old kid, crafts the whole 'President Business is destroying the world' premise based on his father's (President Business's) actions. Ferrell is stifling his kid's (the Lego people's) imagination, and is adamant to maintain control over his world. This is unnerving on a couple of levels – the fact a father is so steadfast in not allowing his son to play with toys designed for children (and adults), and also that Finn concocts such a vehement storyline as a result of this.
So was the transition to the live action scenes necessary?
For younger viewers, the parallel of the two story-lines is something they wouldn't understand to great effect. But for young adults and anyone older, a message about the degree of which adulthood imposes itself over childhood – initially as a discouragingly and damagingly force – is an issue which gives us something to contemplate.
Emmet, the film's protagonist, journeys from an ordinary character to a 'special' individual - much like a child with a clear mind which becomes filled with the experiences of a maturing adult. And Lego itself does possess that unique quality of breaking the confines of age.
But the overpowering idea of the majority of the film about the negative imposition of parents over their children (a.k.a. the Big Brother supremacy over its people) is certainly noteworthy, maybe even alarming. And although we have our mainstream and compulsory happy conclusion, emphasising individual thought and family values above all, almost the entire movie gives us a somewhat disconcerting view of the adult values in a child's upbringing – but maybe this is a good issue to bring to the forefront?
That being said, the foreseeable switch to the live action was a let down, anyway. Maybe this part was too involved for its own good.
The film does do a good job however, of giving rise to other involved ideas. Lord Business is the epitome of current day capitalism and commercialism, and at the same time the entire concept places firm roots in George Orwell's classic 1984 novel – a dystopian world of enduring war; pervasive government surveillance; and public manipulation; controlled by an elite political group which oppresses independent thinking.
Looking at distinctive scenes in the film, such as punishment for not following instructions, and cutting ties between parent and child (when Bad Cop freezes his folks), there are many more specific parallels to be drawn between this movie and 1984. So here, the film does exceptionally well in recapturing Orwell's timeless, not-so-fictional- novel, for a new generation of viewers.
Adult-specific cultural references and jokes made within the film are constructed well too, as are the parodies of other movies.
How about 'Cloud Cuckoo Land' - one of the realms featured in the movie - a land with no rules and reached by travelling up a rainbow. Maybe a cultural reference to the concept of heaven? A reference that could imply such notions invented through various religious groups are in fact cuckoo? Or am I drawing a long bow here?
The concluding triumph of individual creations and breaking free from vanilla instructions over a Nanny state is also in direct contrast to what the actual Lego product is all about – a company which wants you to build structures according to very specific guidelines.
So does this movie, which at first brings up the serious issue of the degree to which adulthood enforces its values on childhood experiences, then comes to a resolution of individual thought, actually follow its own advice and think for itself? Not so much. Although its recycled ideas certainly do work to an extent.
From a pure child's perspective, if those few acts of hostility were left out, as well as the switch to the real people, it could have been better, but that would have changed the dimensions of some of the adult references.
Having said that, The Lego Movie had opening weekend figures in Australia over $5.7 million, a figure second only to Captain American: The Winter Soldier. And it will no doubt do wonders for the sales of those colourful building blocks... I forget what they're called.