It has a 98% fresh rating. The critics concede that it is a movie-length commercial, yet it is funny, fun and even inventive. I don’t have kids but I am going to see this movie.
I worry that:
a) The best jokes are in the previews, which didn’t do much for me
b) The story is predictable
c) Jokes aren’t so much jokes in themselves but merely references
I’ll probably wait for it to come out on netflix/amazon prime.
a) The movie is full of good jokes. The ones they chose for the commercials were, for the most part, pretty bad but aren’t representative. We laughed constantly.
b) The story is very basic stuff but it all comes together in the end in a satisfying way.
c) There are lots of references to other movies but there are also lots and lots of jokes. It’s all pretty silly but it’s very funny.
If it is half as funny (and fun) as the Lego video games, it will still be twice as funny as a typical comedy. Whoever is in charge of LegoArts, or whatever their entertainment division is called, knows how to make engaging and entertaining stuff.
It has an 82 on Metacritic, which puts it in higher than Frozen (74), Monsters University (65) and Despicable Me 2 (62) but not as high as The Wind Rises (84)–to use last year’s animated films as a frame of reference.
I haven’t seen the Wind Rises, but pretty much any Miyazaki movie gets a bump up in the critics due to who he is. I know there are those who adore it, but Howl’s Moving Castle ranks at 84% and to me, it was only a 3 star movie(though I do like it).
How is 84% not a 3-star movie?
I’m not sure if you have an depressed sense of RT % or an inflated sense of stars.
To me, 3 stars is “Like it, but it’s still in the meaty part of the bell curve”, which is around 70% RT.
I confess to being (pleasantly) amazed by the reviews and ratings so far. We all know that toy-fests like this are generally leaden, dull commercials pandering to kids too young to have any critical judgment, but I have yet to hear a negative comment about this film. Not sure it’s worth seeing in the theater but it will be high on my rental list.
The previews just made it look like utter crap, so hearing this is surprising.
This morning’s Sacramento Bee reviewer gave it four stars, which is their highest rating.
Yeah, Matt Pais from the Chicago RedEye, who I always thought of as not liking anything (at least until he made me fall in love with him by choosing Spring Breakers as his favorite movie movie of the year) gave it his highest rating today, 4 stars. I was smiling just reading his review. I’m going to see it on Tuesday.
I’d put 70% as maybe 2 1/2 stars, with 4 stars 90+%. Not that I’ve ever thought about it before.
I would have thought 75% positive is a 3 star movie, 85% positive is a 3 1/2 star movie, while 95% and up would be a 4 star.
Roughly, anyway.
I’d say he gets roughly a 10% bounce upwards(or headstart) for being who he is. And to be fair, the guy who directed Totoro and Spirited Away kind of deserves it.
I just got this week’s Entertainment Weekly, and they gave it an A.
As I said in the other thread, The Lego Batman movie was hilarious and better in almost every conceivable way than the last Bale Batman. If you’ve never seen a Lego movie you can’t understand this, but they got the spirit of the older comic books right, instead of another crazy idiot in tights.
I have high hopes for this one.
I agree. Watching the previews, I assumed that this was going to be another insipid, shameless cash grab like Alvin and the Chipmunks and The Smurfs. I’m actually pretty shocked at all the positive reviews.
I see the problem here. Some of you are using the “five stars max” system (a la Netflix), others the “four stars max” system (a la – what? Michelin restaurant guides or something? Oh, yeah…IMDB, right?).
I just returned from seeing it with my kids, going in semi-skeptical with some of the concerns upthread.
The movie is consistently funny, at time hilariously so, and rather than become a giant commercial peddling more plastic bits to kids, it’s truly more a celebration in pop-culture and returning to the creativity, imagination and joy that these toys are meant to inspire in children (and even adults). Whatever and whoever allowed this movie to happen, the filmmakers (The guys who made Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs) and executives at LEGO should be applauded.
It succeeds in almost every way, and the third act (you’ll know what I’m talking about) was an unexpected, genuinely heartwarming stroke that strikes at the very heart of this theme.
Go see it. Really.
I just saw it, and everything was awesome. Actually, the middle part was a bit boring and could kids really understand everything (like how the k***le got its name)? The animation was also a bit jittery. But overall it was great, especially the ending.
I guess. I thought most critics used the four star system.
Then again, Ebert repeatedly pointed out the uselessness of a star system. It provides almost no comparison between movies.