I liked it before it was cool.

Rating: 9/10 (8 February 2019)

I mean, it's just great. 'The Lego Movie (2014)' is a smart, unexpected and, frankly, hilarious animation that's actually much more than the sum of its parts - not to mention being much, much better than pretty much anyone anticipated, especially considering that it's essentially an extended advert of sorts (perhaps the best, most product-aware advert I've ever seen). The hit-rate of its humour is incredibly high. It's genuinely funny on more than one occasion, providing several big belly-laughs. Even when it isn't 'laugh-out-loud', there's something amusing or clever that keeps an ear-to-ear smile on your face, essentially, every few seconds. The piece is also remarkably heartfelt. It manages to keenly deliver a few important and considered messages, round off all its core characters in satisfying ways and conflate its masterful but somewhat 'out there' twist with its already established world, all while delivering a fast-paced, mile-a-minute, almost visually-psychedelic adventure. Seriously, there's a moment near the end that comes really close to making me tear up. That's not bad for a picture about talking plastic bricks. Speaking of which, the animation itself is stunning. Everything is made of individual digital Lego pieces, most of which have fingerprints and scratches on them. This, combined with the stop-motion style and dedication to only using replicas of real-world pieces (there's no cheating here), makes for an impressively tangible but delightfully playful feast-for-the-eyes, one that packs so much stuff into each and every plausibly (if nigh on impossibly) real-life recreatable frame. It's just great. It's easily one of the best animated features that I've ever seen. If one were to be cynical and say it were just an extended advert and not a proper film, then I'd fire back and say that, as I mentioned, it's straight-up the best advert I've ever seen, by a wide margin, that's better than a lot of 'proper', non product-placement containing pictures. It's an advert that I'd be happy to watch again and again. Well played, Lord and Miller. Well played, indeed. 9/10