So, who’s excited for The Lego Movie?
I know I speak for a lot of people when I say that Lego was a big part of my childhood and to be honest, it’s still fun when you’re past the age of 10. I haven’t been to the cinema in a long time coz it does cost quite a bit just to sit and watch a film ONCE for like 90 minutes, when you could just wait til it comes out on DVD and watch it whenever you want, wherever you want.
But the Lego Movie is coming out around the time of my birthday, so it seems like a nice treat.
Plus Morgan Freeman is in it - do I need to say any more?
And yeah, from the trailers this movie looks like it totally fucking rocks. So far whoever is in charge of this cross-media Lego strategy has been batting them out of the park, IMO. Lego City was light years better than even the movie franchise Lego games, for instance.
We (me, my wife, and our two kids) saw The Lego Movie yesterday at an advance screening. It is great. We laughed constantly. It’s basically a take-off of a movie that was a huge hit last century (see the spoiler below if you want to know which movie). Will Arnett as Batman and Chris Pratt as Emmett are especially good.
Here’s the spoiler promised above:
The basic storyline is based on The Matrix. Emmett is The Special, like Neo was The One.
I was initially very excited, then a bit worried after the first trailers. But I saw a “Behind the Brick” (parody of a “behind the scenes”) video the other day that was hilarious. So I’m back to excited - I’m hoping it’s a lot like Frozen, where the trailers were purposely aimed at kids.
There is a lot of humor in the movie that works on both adult and kid levels. There are a lot of little surprises and tons of movie references. The animation is standard Lego animation (which I can only describe as computer-generated stop-motion animation) but there are a few scenes which are very impressive. I can’t think of any scene where they cheated and did something that you couldn’t do with Lego bricks (if you had 30 million bricks). They used some visual effects like smoke and fire but every set is made of individual bricks and has realistic physics (bricks don’t bend, for example). The animated minifigures get a fuller range of motion than an actual minifigure, although they sometimes restrict their motion for a gag.
The movie is more sophisticated than it seems. Some of the kids we were with didn’t fully understand the ending (I think a lack of understanding of the phrase “the man upstairs” was the main sticking point). I think some adults actually got a bit teary.
I left the theater wondering whether the guys who made the early Pixar movies were involved. It’s that good. When I heard that there was going to be a Lego movie I wondered whether they would be able to pull it off. The TV shows they’ve done have been very good but weren’t good enough to be feature films. Like the South Park movie, they made the leap to the big screen while remaining true to their roots.
I am mos def excited to see this. I loved Legos as a kid and my son loves them now too and I’m hoping the reviews are favorable, but ultimately we’ll see it in any case.
I just turned 50, with one kid in grad school and the other about to be, and the ads for this still make me laugh.
I particularly enjoy the following bit:
Batman: “To the Batmobile!”
(Shot of villain’s rocket ship firing on and exploding the Batmobile)
Batman: “Dangit!”
Wonder Woman : “To the invisible jet!”
(Shot of villain’s rocket ship firing on and exploding the empty space where the Batmobile was)
Wonder Woman: “Dangit!”
I saw the trailer recently and my son and I looked at each other totally bewildered. Neither of us could think of any reason for the movie to exist, although I did think they wouldn’t have had to pay the Lego figurines much. I was amazed a couple of days ago to see it on a list of most anticipated movies of 2014. What do I know?
18 critic reviews in so far at Rotten Tomatoes and it’s sitting at a 100% approval rating. That’s a pretty good sign.
The plot sounds deep enough and interesting but I wouldn’t read too many reviews if you don’t want it spoiled for you.