The Lego Movie - Review

Directors: Phil Lord, Chris Miller Writers: Phil Lord, Chris Miller Studios: Warner Bros. Pictures, Village Roadshow Pictures, Lego System A/S, Vertigo Entertainment, Lin Pictures Cast: Chris Pratt, Will Ferrell, Elizabeth Banks, Will Arnett, Nick Offerman, Alison Brie, Charlie Day, Liam Neeson, Morgan Freeman Release Date (UK): 14 February 2014 Certificate: U Runtime: 100 min

ZOMG: “The Lego Movie” is awesome. Like, properly, amazingly, heart-soaringly awesome. Like, I-wanna-go-get-out-my-old-official-Lego-bucket-and-build-a-rocket-ship-with-some-brightly-coloured-interlocking-building-blocks kinda awesome. It’s so awesome its theme song is literally called “Everything is Awesome.” And this song is so infectiously catchy I can’t for the life of me imagine it ever vacating my earholes — not that I’d want it to. Sing it with me: everything is awesome, everything is cool when you’re part of a team...

Ahem. But seriously, “The Lego Movie” is super-fun. It’s like bottled joy — a bottle made of Lego! Save your silly, cynical rants about commercialism and corporatisation and let “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” duo Phil Lord and Chris Miller take you on an exhilarating sugar rush through their giant Lego playset. In fact, any and all cynicism should be quick to drown in the sea of awesome we’re invited to plunge into here; even the toughest and most doody-headed of cynics should have their veritable pants charmed off by the subversive wit and the boundless invention “The Lego Movie” boasts by the bucketload; not to mention the sheer, explosive enthusiasm bursting out from the screen and into your face.

The vividly vibrant and thrillingly hectic world of “The Lego Movie” is a seamless mix of stop-motion and computer-animation, and it is dazzlingly gorgeous. Living in this colourful land is Emmet, a sprightly but hopelessly ordinary Lego construction worker voiced by Chris Pratt who finds himself at the centre of an age-old “chosen one” scenario. Apparently he’s “the special,” the one prophesied to defeat the evil Lord Business (Will Ferrell), who schemes to glue everything and everyone into place using a secret weapon called the Kragle. On his quest, Emmet teams up with the fugitive Master Builders, among them a kooky old mystic (Morgan Freeman), a free-spirited punk chick called WyldStyle (Elizabeth Banks), Lego Batman (Will Arnett), Lego Wonder Woman (Cobie Smulders) and a robo-pirate called Metalbeard (Nick Offerman), and is pursued by a one-man good cop/bad cop duo voiced by Liam Neeson.

Sound fun? You bet your tiny plastic caboose it is. And the whole thing whizzes along at an unstoppably exuberant pace — in fact, it moves with such frenzied ferocity you half-worry it’s all going to crash at any minute but it never does and it just keeps going and it’s utterly thrilling. All the while Lord and Miller giddily undermine the clichés of the plot at every step — in one scene, Emmet daydreams through important backstory exposition, and it’s rather strongly suggested that the central prophecy was maybe, possibly, probably made up by Morgan Freeman’s mad mystic — and generate enough geeky (Lego-owned) pop culture nods and send-ups to keep any fanbase squeeing in their seats. Where else could you see Dumbledore and Gandalf sharing the screen together and Superman getting annoyed by a clingy Green Lantern?

It’s fantastic to see a family movie which values and promotes creativity, individuality and imagination so fervently, especially when it’s attached to the wise and surprising message that although being creative can be good, sometimes simply following the instructions works too. It’s also fantastic seeing a family movie which is just this funny and witty and clever in its comedy: with rapid-fire gags, Lord and Miller’s whip-smart script has a stonking laugh-a-minute hit rate. At the end, my sides were sore from all my hysterical giggling and my face was stuck in an expression of pure, child-like glee. Put simply, “The Lego Movie” made me feel like a little kid again, playing with my Lego blocks on the floor of my bedroom, building spaceships and supercars and making up wild and crazy stories. If there’s a funner film this year I will literally shit a brick (not literally). All together now: everything is awesome, everything is cool when you’re part of a team...

Rating: 10/10