We at BMAF are planning on seeing The Lego Batman Movie soon, so decided to get ready for it by watching The Lego Movie.
From the directing team of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, who brought us 21 and 22 Jump Street, as well as the previous animated success, Cloudy with a chance of Meatballs, this film follows Emmet Brickowoski (voiced by Chris Pratt) a Lego construction worker, who leads an ordinary if repetitive life, he likes the same music, TV Show, food etc as everyone else.
Yet Emmet does not know he has been prophesied as being able to stop the evil tyrant of the Lego world, Lord Business (Will Ferrell) who is not enjoying Lego as a child, but as a grown up, looking for vast profits rather than for fun.
One day after work, Emmet, who has nothing to make him stand out from the rest of his workers, sees a mysterious figure on the building site and stays behind to get them off the closed site.
When in pursuit of the figure, he falls down a large hole, he is attached to a special type of brick, the holder of it being the subject of the prophecy, told by Vitruvius (Morgan Freeman) to stop Lord Business and his secret weapon (the brick is a cap for glue, as plans are to turn all characters into statues)
With the special brick in his possession, the mysterious stranger reveals themselves to be Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks) who believes Emmet is here to save her and all Lego kind.
What follows is a crazy, fun film as Emmet learns he can think for himself and become extraordinary rather than ordinary.
With a film made entirely using Lego the film has plenty of colour but also unlike a lot of children’s films has plenty for adults too, with lots of pop culture references from the likes of Star Wars; Marvel Universe including the Jump Street boys as The Green Lantern (Jonah Hill) & Superman (Channing Tatum) as well as Lord of the Rings ‘Gandalf’ and of course, Will Arnett as Batman.
Other characters include Abraham Lincoln; Shaquille O’Neal; Shakespeare, A Unicorn and Cat creature known as Unikitty (Alison Brie); A fun 80’s astronaut called Benny (Charlie Day) and a scene stealing Liam Neeson, as Good Cop/Bad Cop
The film is also remembered by audiences for its extremely catchy opening song ‘Everything is Awesome’
The first time we saw this film, we loved it, but it did not do as well for a second showing, this is no Pixar film in story, but it is still a fun watch. The highlights are the 2 faced cop and by far, Batman, it is clear why he has been chosen to have a stand alone film. The film does have good messages about making time to play, a storyline at the core of the film.
As a family film, this delivers the goods and audiences worldwide loved it, with a sequel scheduled for 2019. In fact the film did so well, that other toy companies wanted in on the action as Trolls followed, with Playmobil and My Little Pony movies also on the way. You’ll have not problem getting movie merchandise for these titles =)
The film also helped raise Chris Pratt into the huge film star he is today, as he is excellent as the films lead, but he is supported by a fantastic cast.
This really is an enjoyable watch but just be warned it is also a massive advert for Lego products. You don’t need to be a Lego fan to enjoy it, but if you have ever played with it, you will love seeing what can be done with those bricks!
You can watch the trailer here:
You can buy the film at Amazon here (we watched it for free as an Amazon Prime member at the time of writing)
You can make yourself out of Lego using their sig creator here:
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