Everything Is Adorable

Much like Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, the original The Lego Movie was one of those movies that at first sight, you would write it off as an uninspired cash grab, only to see it and realize it has no business being as good as it is. Such lightning caught in a bottle is nearly impossible to duplicate, but that never stops movie studios from creating sequels anyway. So, is the sequel a worthy successor, or much like the Pirates franchise, is this the beginning of a downward spiral for the series? Let’s find out.

The movie starts mere moments after the events of the first movie, then fast forwards five years into the future. Wait a second, that sounds eerily familiar to another blockbuster sequel that came out this year. Anyway, the story of The Lego Movie 2 is that the city of Bricksburg has been invaded by the Duplo aliens of the Systar System. A war breaks out, reducing the world into Apocalypseburg, which looks exactly like what would happen if Lego managed to get the license to the Mad Max franchise. While everyone is brooding, our everyman hero, Emmet (voiced by the living embodiment of charisma that is Chris Pratt) is still his naive and cheery self. Emmet tells his action heroine friend, Lucy/Wyldstyle (voice of Elizabeth Banks) of a recurring dream he has, which he calls "Armamageddon," unwittingly foreshadowing the coming events of the movie. The city is then attacked by Sweet Mayhem (voice of Stephanie Beatriz), who then captures Lucy, along with Lego Batman (Will Arnett), Benny (Charlie Day), MetalBeard (Nick Offerman), and Unikitty (Alison Brie), and delivers them to Queen Watevra Wa'Nab (Tiffany Haddish). Emmet then has to team up with Rex Dangervest (also Chris Pratt) to save his friends.

For those of you who haven’t seen the first Lego Movie, play on words provide half of the humor, i.e. Watevra Wa’Nab = Whatever I Wanna Be, or Armamageddon = Our Mom Gets In, etc. The other half is meta-jokes that older audiences will get, such as the many references to the DC Universe, like Lego Batman mentioning having nine movies starring himself, as well as three new movies in various stages of development. The story was written by comedic geniuses, Phil Lord and Chris Miller, the masterminds behind the Oscar winning Best Animated Feature, Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse. These two are brilliant at storytelling and sneaking in humor when you least expect it, while winking at the audiences as they point out action movie tropes, not unlike how Joss Whedon does in his writing.

Furthermore, and this is an even bigger spoiler for those of you who haven’t seen the first movie, the events happening within the animated story are actually the imagination of a live action boy who is interacting with the Lego toys. The previous movie dealt with the boy having to convince his father to let him play with the Legos, rather than the father leaving them on display by freezing them in place with krazy glue. This installment deals with the boy having to let his younger sister (hence Sistar = sister) play with the Legos, and their ideas of imaginative worldbuilding clashing with each other. While the boy wants everything to be “gritty, mature, and cool,” while his sister wants everything to be brightly colored, covered in glitter, and upbeat. This all leads to meta-jokes, as the boy sees the Lego world through the lens of Chris Pratt’s movies (Rex Dangervest is a blatant reference to Guardians of the Galaxy and Jurassic World), while the girl wants a more girly, bubblegum pop aesthetic (there’s even a blatant reference to Twilight).

I must say, the movie is so adorable, you might risk getting diabetes from it being so painfully sweet. The humor is infectious throughout, no matter what age you are. All the voice actors do a great job, with Elizabeth Banks as the standout performance. I found Tiffany Haddish’s voice to be harsh at first, but she grew on me after a while; it helps that most of what she’s saying and what is going on around her is hilarious. Will Arnett is still great as Lego Batman, but he feels underwhelming in this installment, mostly because all of the best humor based around Batman was used up in the spin-off movie of his Lego character. The animation is still great, as you would swear that you’re watching a “brick movie” with expensive production quality being played out in front of you. The songs are catchy and clever, and I do love the overall message of the movie, about how children need to play along with each other, rather than fight, and how the movie expands upon the first movie’s message of creativity and world building being whatever you want it to be. If you want your children learning positive messages such as those, this is the movie to show them.

That being said, the movie fell apart for me in the third act. It’s not that this part is genuinely bad in any sense of filmmaking, it’s just that this is where the movie becomes underwhelming, after the first two acts really delivered. I won’t go into fully detailed spoilers, but I do have to hint at plot points, so read on with caution. If I could compare Lego Movie 2 to another movie which fell short for the same reasons, it would be Ghostbusters 2. Like that movie, Lego Movie 2 takes a great premise, but in its third act, it just copies what happened in the third act of the first movie, and puts it on steroids. It comes across as lazy, and even eye-rolling silly. In the first movie, it’s revealed that Will Ferrell (who also voiced the villain in that installment, Lord Business) was the boy’s father. Here, another Saturday Night Live alumni plays the mother, and it just reeks of “haha, we went back to that joke,” and they follow that with falling back onto a repeated, “it hurts so much to stop on Legos in your bare feet” joke.

Not only that, but the movie plays fast and loose with the logic of how the animated Lego world works. We’re know the Lego characters are only acting out the imaginations of the children, and at best, can only move a few inches by themselves in “the real world.” But all of a sudden, the Lego characters can fully articulate, interact with each other, and continue the storyline, without the children controlling them. This is kinda jarring, as it implies the Lego characters can fully come to life without humans knowing via Toy Story, something that wasn’t implied before. It completely takes you out of the story, especially since the natural progression of the animated world’s story came to a logical concussion, but then the movie goes on for what feels like another half hour. And if that weren’t enough, it’s revealed that time travel also exists within the animated world’s story, and someone is actually trying to change the story’s events that have already happened. And when explaining this, other popular time travel movies are referenced. Again, this feels eerily familiar to another blockbuster sequel that came out this year. All these plot twists feel tacked on, and I think they are why the movie “underperformed” at the box office. That, and how Warner Bros oversaturated the market with the Lego Batman Movie, and the Lego Ninjago Movie. The third act doesn’t completely ruin the movie, but it is a letdown at best.

Overall, I still loved the movie, incredibly flawed third act notwithstanding, which is why I give it a well deserved four out of five stars. If you’re looking for a family friendly movie to watch, a feel good movie that will harken back to your childhood memories, or just an overall entertaining movie (convoluted third act aside) this is an excellent choice to rent on physical disk or on demand. It would also be a great addition to your collection, and maybe even an heirloom to pass down from generation to generation. That concludes this fanpicked review. And remember, when it comes to the media that you consume, be like Indiana Jones, and chose wisely.

Short Version

Pros:

• Good voice acting performances
• Animation is top notch
• Funny, entertaining, and has great messages

Cons:

• Recycled jokes from the first movie
• Changed rules of how the Lego characters function
• Convoluted plot twist involving time travel

Verdict: (four out of five stars)