The Lego Movie (2014)

It’d be a very short putt to brush off The Lego Movie as an extended toy commercial, but it would have been even easier to make that version of the film.  Instead, and fortunately for moviegoers, The Lego Movie more than lives up to its theme tune, “Everything Is Awesome,” by being exuberantly fun, deliciously creative, and containing a whopper of an important message.

Emmet Brickowski (Chris Pratt) is your average-joe Lego minifigure, indistinct in every way until he finds the Piece of Resistance, an object which freedom fighter Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks) and wizard Vitruvius (Morgan Freeman) tell him is the key to saving the Lego universe from the dastardly plans of President Business (Will Ferrell).  Emmet joins the other Master Builders – including spaceman Benny (Charlie Day), Unikitty (Alison Brie) and Batman (Will Arnett) – to discover his awesome destiny.

Critical approval of The Lego Movie is currently holding at 96% over on that tomato-based review site, and it’s no wonder.  Rather than pander to what we’d expect from a film based on a toy (looking at you, Transformers), The Lego Movie does some very creative things while building that creativity into the very fabric of the narrative, literalizing what amounts to a cogent critique of the current state of cinema.  The dystopia of The Lego Movie is the consequence of a cultural apathy for innovation, a contentment to follow instructions, ingest empty pop music, and consume expensive coffee.  The Lego builders rely on old formulas, stable sets of instructions to shape their world.

As a remedy for the plight of creativity, Emmet learns to build outside the box, without the crutch of directions.  Like the rest of the Master Builders, Emmet has to think in new ways, assembling extant pieces into original and fantastic shapes, utilizing the old forms only when absolutely necessary.  It’s a wonderful commentary on Hollywood’s remake-happy philosophy; rather than give moviegoers something they’ve never seen before (Emmet’s double-decker couch), filmmakers are all too reliant on proven formulas (cars with a wheel... and three other wheels).

It’s perhaps ironic that Batman is included in the Master Builders in the film, as he’s one of the most frequently deployed “pieces” in Hollywood’s toybox.  But even in the case of Batman, The Lego Movie proves its point.  We’ve seen possibly every incarnation of Batman on the silver screen – a deliberately campy one in 1966, Tim Burton’s comic-booky version, Schumacher’s homoerotic-inflected hero, and back to Nolan’s ultra-gritty realism – but The Lego Movie avoids falling into the stereotype of any of the previous incarnations by taking Batman in a new direction, guided by Arnett’s perfect voiceover work.  Taking a satirical bent on the “Dark Knight” and all his grim trappings, Arnett’s Batman is performative and growly, but it’s moments like Batman’s hatred of rainbows that add something new to the character.  Taking the pieces that filmmakers have already used, The Lego Movie shows us how to be creative by reinterpreting and revising (emphasis on “vision”).  Take note, Zack Snyder!

The Lego Movie is so delightfully self-aware, casting Morgan Freeman as an omniscient sorcerer but continually undercutting the character with delightful one-liners.  The film is full of surprises, best experienced and not spoiled, so I’ll refrain from my usual litany of review bullet points and conclude by saying that The Lego Movie is, simply put, awesome.

The Lego Movie is rated PG “for mild action and rude humor.”  Really, the movie is quite tame, and were it not for a scene or two where Lego figures are threatened with being melted, it’s entirely appropriate for all audiences.  I mean, my goodness – the characters won’t even say “gosh” as a swear word (Emmet spells it out to avoid speaking it).