Lord & Miller pull out another surprise hit

Rating: 7/10 (10 August 2014)

Version I saw: UK cinema release (2D)
Actors: 6/10
Plot/script: 8/10
Photography/visual style: 8/10
Music/score: 6/10
Overall: 7/10
While it didn't quite live up to the astonishing word-of-mouth support it got, The Lego Movie is a rip-roaring success. This is especially remarkable when you consider what it is. Whoever heard of a movie based on a toy (that has no actual story associated with it) being good?
Directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller have previous on this, though. Their first movie was Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, which is as goofy a title as I can remember, and no more than a one-gag set-up to boot... and yet they imbued it with a surreal humour that attracted audiences. Then they revived 80s TV series 21 Jump Street, and the record for that kind of adaptation is very patchy at best, but they pulled that round too.
Lord and Miller seem to have their finger on the pulse of the zeitgeist. Supported by a genius idea for an underlying theme, The Lego Movie looks stunning too. The graphics are impressively composed entirely from Lego blocks genuinely available to the public, assembled into whole scenes and settings. The animators took the opportunity to throw in a million blink-and-miss-it sight gags, in a remarkable show of attention detail.
I have to say that, in contradiction to other views I have heard, I found the song 'Everything is Awesome' by Tegan and Sara, which is a prominent part of the film, to be annoying but catchy rather than actually good, although that is still a credit to T&S because that is the role of the song in the film. It is improved by the comedic rapping of The Lonely Island in the full extended version, heard over the end credits.
A host of star names, both playing their most famous characters and playing other characters of note, enliven the proceedings. This is appropriate, given that the Lego franchise's recent revival has been built on adapting iconic series such as Star Wars, Harry Potter and Batman into games using the Lego block style.
A sequel seems inevitable, and I hope it is still this good, now that they have the weight of expectation on them.
For my full review, see my independent film blog on Blogspot, Cinema Inferno: http://cinemainferno-blog.blogspot.co.uk