Without sounding to cliché, The Lego Movie is so damn smart, clever, charming, consistently funny, visually arousing and all-around insightful that it deserves to stand alongside Toy Story as an animated movie that can reach both children and adults alike in a way only a movie about toys can. If enjoying a movie meant for children is childish then put a blankie in my hand, tuck me in and lie to me. Say there aren’t such things as monsters, because I haven’t had such a big smile on my face in a theater in quite some time.
It’s one of those movies that purely exist to amuse and enthrall with its unique sets made out of those sharp little blocks we’ve all come to love. Literally the first line will have you rioting, and it doesn’t let up for a second. As we watch ordinary guy Emmit (Chris Pratt) go on an amazing journey with the help of Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks), the wizard Vitruvius (Morgan Freeman) and even Batman (Will Arnett) every line is filled with some hysterical joke, pun or self-referential interaction. Even when there is a serious interaction there is some kind of physical comedy going on in background, like two henchman trying to get a giant Band-Aide off the others head. Genius.
But The Lego Movie’s greatest strength lies in its self-awareness. It’s not just some lame kiddie movie with simple slapstick humor that only exists to sell Legos.
It knows it’s a movie about little bricks and what it does with that humor is so beyond what you can fathom goofy and random looks like that it’s almost impossible to describe. It’s so off-its-blocks original that it must be seen to believe.
The best scene I could describe is when Wyldstyle is describing the nine realms, and up pops images off the classic Medieval, pirate and spaces editions I played with as a kid, all before speeding past the lame Bionicle and race car series as she says, “And a bunch of others no one cares about”.
This is genuinely a movie made by guys who told themselves, “Let’s just play with an endless supply of Legos, with absolutely no restrictions, and see what happens.” Even the plot is about how Lord Business (Will Ferrell) wants to use the Kragle (Krazy Glue with the ZY and U scratched out) to freeze the universe in a state of conformity. It condemns following the rules and inspires the unstoppable force that is the human imagination.
No scene better does this than during the climax when it’s revealed that the entire universe is an actual Lego set and the imaginary world we’ve been following and the real world we live in collide, delivering the gut-busting message: These toys mean something to people. It’s how we expressed ourselves at one point in time and even continue to fuel our passionate inner child.
It’s a move about the beauty of creativity and the wonders it can create when you have the proper building blocks. Much like in Toy Story 3, when Andy gazes upon his toys as if they were real people, and understands that the time he spent playing with them was the best he’d ever had.
With a hilarious, fleshed-out band of main and side characters and one of the most brilliant color palates I’ve ever seen on screen, and the most glorious band of cameos the imagination can conjure, The Lego Movie is not just a rich feast of cinema, its one big love letter to play time.
No movie of its kind in some time has proclaimed such a passionate ode to childish joy, and with such wit and bravado. The movie wasn’t trying to market Legos to me, so the fact that I now want them all is irrelevant.
But let’s just say that if I do buy some I am going to throw the instruction booklet away. Multi-colored dinosaur riding a space ship piloted by Superman as they fight a mechanized giraffe here I come.
