Everything is (relatively) awesome

Rating: 7/10 (2 January 2018)

'The Lego Movie' is exactly what you expect, but also at the same time, something unexpected. It's a bright, fast-paced, well-intentioned kids' film, but it also has quite a few genuine laughs and touching moments - not that they're out of place, just that they add some levity to the story, which sometimes does get a little too "meta" for it's own good.
The storyline is quite straightforward - ordinary guy gets thrust into an adventure to save the Universe, defeat the bad guy (Ferrell) and find love, even though he's "normal" - obviously, it turns out everyone's "Special"/unique, not just those that are prominent. What makes it stand out is how they've taken something we all know & love - I doubt anyone born in the last 40 years hasn't played with Lego as a kid - and translated it to a living world. We get to see this through Emmet (Pratt)'s eyes and it's pretty funny how they integrate corporate America - coffee, music & TV shows - into this Lego world. And it's great how the Lego looks real and only animated to move facial effects - and the animated water is great. My favourite bit was seeing Ben the 'generic 80's astronaut' (Charlie Day) - and his enthusiasm for building spaceships - who even had an authentic helmet crack where the chin strap always broke! I remember building weird spaceships for him.
One of my main issues is that they've gone to such great effort to animate this world, but then they fly through most of it so quickly that you don't actually get a chance to appreciate it all! Thanks to being a Warner Brothers film, we get the benefit of seeing DC characters - Wonder Woman, Superman, Green Lantern (a great sub-plot with these two!), and especially, Batman. The casting of Will Arnett as Batman is genius - his gravelly voice perfectly suited, as well as his comic timing. The ending - combining live action with the animation actually works - is pretty good and wraps everything up nicely, while also making you care for some of these characters, even if they're little yellow blocks!