So this week we saw The Lego Batman Movie, we must admit we were quite excited about it as the Lego Batman of the Lego Movie was for us the film highlight.
Those high hopes increased by the film opening as we get a commentary of the opening titles by Batman (again voiced by Will Arnett) setting up what we hoped would be a lot of fun.
The story shows that Bruce Wayne/Batman is living a bit of a lonely life with no attachments, he seems to be emotionless, he just goes from day to day defeating bad guys, even The Joker (Zach Galifianakis) is not happy with it, as Batman does not acknowledge him with hate or anything and wants revenge for this.
Batman goes home to a lonely Wayne Manor where he has a microwave meal of Lobster Thermidor every night, and watched RomCom’s, with only Alfred (Ralph Fiennes) for company, yet he is only treated as a butler most of the time. Alfred urges Bruce/Batman to get our more and make more friends.
A chance to make friends happens, at Commissioner Gordon’s (Hector Elizondo) retirement do. It is here it is announced that his daughter, Barbara Gordon (Rosario Dawnson) has taken over the policing of Gotham City, and wants to get the Joker and co behind bars permanently.
This infuriates Batman, as with all villains behind bars, he would have no real purpose, yet he is torn as appears to be attracted to Barbara, so much so he answers questions to young Dick Grayson (Michael Cera), from a local adoption home, and without even listening, agrees to adopt him. Dick, of course, will become the boy wonder, Robin.
Incredibly at this announcement, The Joker and all Batman’s enemies turn up and hand themselves in to be imprisoned. Batman breaks the Joker out and sends him to the Phantom Zone, the prison were Zod from the Superman movies is imprisoned.
However, The Joker has always planned to be put to the phantom zone, where he builds relationships with new villains including Lord of the Rings Sauron (Jemaine Clement); Harry Potter’s Voldemort (Eddie Izzard, as the movies Ralph is here being Alfred); King Kong (Seth Green) as well as Doctor Who Daleks (just known as British aliens); A Godzilla type creature; a Shark and Gremlins!
With this new team of villains they attack Gotham and of course Batman is needed yet again.
But over the course of the film, he has learned he doesn’t need to be alone and gets help with Robin, as well as Alfred who become a tribute to the Adam West Batman and Barbara becoming Batgirl. He also gets the help of the villains the Joker left behind in prison, including Harley Quinn (Jenny Slate) and various other members, to make up the joke that Batman is teaming up with the Suicide Squad.
Can Batman and the team save Gotham? You will have to go and see for yourselves by watching the Lego Batman Movie.
References to Suicide Squad and other aspects of the Batman timeline’s is where this film excels, Bat Fans will love seeing various villains, the likes of Bane, Scarecrow and lesser known ones such as Orca and The Condiment King!
Also again many other DC heroes are here in cameos, including Superman and Green Lantern (again voiced by the Jump Street boys Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill)
However, whereas The Lego Batman movie felt new and fresh, this sadly was not as good, Will Arnett was great scene stealing in the Lego Movie, but the character is stretched over a whole film, and the gravel-voiced impression of Christian Bale wears thin over time.
The film also does at times feel unoriginal (despite having 5 writers), it follows the superhero franchise model with some story and lots of big explosion and action sequences.
Yet even worse at times feels like you are just watching a small child playing with Lego, and therefore feel like an overlong advert. You can certainly find plenty of Lego merchandise for this film.
We had a lot of laughs along the way, with the various great pop culture references (gremlins attack a plane will bring memories of The Twilight Zone Movie, Batman pokes digs at Marvel with a password that makes fun of one of their popular characters) but overall this was a real disappointment, which is a shame as we had such high hopes.
If we want to watch a Batman film again, it will be a Tim Burton or Christopher Nolan one, rather than this again, which is a real shame as we had such high hopes from such a talented cast.
You can see the film in 2D and 3D and watch the trailer at the film website here:
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