The Lego Movie review

THE LEGO MOVIE:

CONSTRUCTED WITH HILARIOUS GAGS BUILT ON AMUSING VOICE ACTING!

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: *** 1/2 out of 4

WARNER BROS. PICTURES

(From left to right) Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Metalbeard, Batman, Emmet, Astronaut Benny, Wyldstyle, Vitruvius, Unikitty, and Green Ninja in The Lego Movie

            From the studio behind Happy Feet and directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (Cloudy with a chance of Meatballs, 21 Jump Street) comes a colossally entertaining animated feature based on the popular Lego toy line. The Lego Movie has surprisingly impressive and energetic animation (especially for a children’s Lego movie), a hysterical voice cast, and very funny jokes and visual humor.

            The film is about a construction worker named Emmet (voiced by Chris Pratt-Parks & Recreation, Her, Guardians of the Galaxy) who lives an ordinary life in a big city of yellow, claw-handed Lego people. That is until he finds out about a secret organization known as the Master Builders, a group of Lego heroes gathered together to save the world, led by the powerful wizard, Vitruvius (voiced by Morgan Freeman-Driving Ms. Daisy, The Shawshank Redemption, The Dark Knight trilogy).

            Emmet is mistaken to be an extraordinary person and meant to save the world from an evil business tyrant, Lord Business (voiced by Will Ferrell-Anchorman 1 and 2, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, Blades of Glory) who plans to freeze the city with the deadly substance, Kragle.

            Accompanying Emmet and Vitruvius on their mission is the sassy heroine, Wyldstyle (voiced by Elizabeth Banks-Spider-Man trilogy, The Hunger Games franchise, Pitch Perfect), the Caped Crusader himself, Batman (voiced by Will Arnett-Arrested Development, Blades of Glory, Despicable Me), a 1980s-Something-Space-Guy named Astronaut Benny (voiced by Charlie Day-It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Horrible Bosses, Pacific Rim), a half-cat, half-unicorn with breathtaking anger-management issues named Unikitty (voiced by Alison Brie-Scream 4, The Five-Year Engagement, The Kings of Summer), and a giant pirate-robot named Metalbeard (voiced by Nick Offerman-We’re the Millers, The Kings of Summer, In a World…).

            There is a large selection of familiar characters like Superman (voiced by Channing Tatum-21 Jump Street, Magic Mike, White House Down), Wonder Woman (voiced by Cobie Smulders-How I Met Your Mother, The Avengers), Green Lantern (voiced by Jonah Hill-Superbad, 21 Jump Street, This is the End), Green Ninja, Michelangelo, Michelangelo of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the Mermaid, Shaq (voiced by himself) and the 2002 NBA All-Stars, and many others as members of the Master Builders who help Emmet and his friends stop Lord Business, his henchman, a split-personality Bad Cop/Good Cop (voiced by Liam Neeson-Schindler's List, Taken 1 and 2, Unknown), and Lord Business’ army of menacing robots.

            Overall The Lego Movie is surprisingly a very enjoyable animated flick, there’s plenty of energetic action, laugh out loud humor, great voice acting, and plenty of things that will appeal to both kids and adults, young and old and the joke at the end is absolutely hilarious, I won’t spoil it here but you’ll be laughing hard once you see it.
Besides great action and humor, the film also has decent character development, everyone has a unique personality that often lead to great laughs, Emmet is the ordinary everyman, Wyldstyle is the gal of action with a “Wild Style”, Batman is hilarious and definitely makes a great jerky character, although it’s hard to take The Dark Knight seriously in this flick.

            If Frozen is considered the best animated film of 2013 then The Lego Movie is so far the best animated film of 2014, certainly better than The Nut Job, but we’ll have to see how DreamWorks and Blue Sky do with Mr. Peabody and Sherman, How to Train Your Dragon 2, and Rio 2. Even so, The Lego Movie is worth seeing on the big screen and in 3D and it’s definitely a good reason to pull out that old box of Legos from when you were a little kid.