The LEGO Movie (2014) - Film Review

Starring: Chris Pratt, Will Ferrell, Elizabeth Banks & Will Arnett

Screenplay: Phil Lord & Chris Miller

Directed By: Phil Lord & Chris Miller

Certificate: U

Back in November 2011, Warner Bros. announced that production had begun for a feature-length film entitled The LEGO Movie. Practically everyone across the world let out a huge sigh of anguish. Many believed that the film would just be a prolonged advert for LEGO toys, and wondered how many ways they would find to screw this one up. Who ever imagined that the finished product would receive such critical acclaim? But does The LEGO Movie deserve all the hype and congratulations that it has received?

 

The LEGO Movie begins with Lord Business stealing the “super-weapon”, the Kragle (hilariously revealed to be a tube of superglue) from Vitruvius in a very dramatic opening few minutes. Tired of all the custom building going on, Lord Business and his men hatch a plan to stick all the LEGO sets together, to stop the characters from going against the instructions and building what they want. We then cut to Emmet, an ordinary, everyday LEGO construction worker, who is soon thrown into a world he doesn’t understand, simply because he happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. It soon becomes Emmet’s job to stop Lord Business’s evil plans, and save the world, because he is the “Chosen One”.

 

The idea of an ordinary person having to suddenly save everyone, because they are supposedly “chosen”, has been done before, and milked for all its worth. However, as with practically everything in this film, The LEGO Movie brings its own unique take to the idea. While poking fun at the cliché, the film shows Emmet go on a path to genuinely become “the special”. During the sections in the Wild West and Cloud Cuckoo Land, we see various characters poke fun at the cliché myth. At the start of the film, the other characters describe Emmet fairly accurately, as he is truly a character who is just generic and has no real personality traits. There's nothing to define him in turns of likes and dislikes, and he's missing that “something” that makes a person unique. However, when he meets Wyldstyle, this all changes as he starts to evolve into a more unique self, until he truly becomes “The Special”. Such a moral message about individuality, is admirably handled for a family film.

 

On his quest to become "The Special", Emmet is supported by a ton of different characters; as they work together to stop Lord Business. Purely because there are so many, I won't talk about all of them, but instead, I’ll talk about some of the more notable ones, such as Wyldstyle and Vitruvius. Wyldstyle isn't as complex as Emmet, but she’s far from being a 2D character. Originally, she just starts off as a generic heroine that is intended to be “cool” for kids and act as a potential love interest for the main character. However, it later becomes clear that she’s a much deeper and thought-out character than this. One of the best moments where we see this is when we learn her real name, in a really sweet scene.

 

Next, we have Morgan Freeman as the voice of Vitruvius. Vitruvius provides constantly funny gags, quips and slapstick throughout the film. In fact, Vitruvius is one of the funniest supporting characters here, along with Batman. Batman being in The LEGO Movie is just brilliant, and he's probably my favourite supporting character, hilariously mocking Batman's dark and broody nature. Perhaps the most divisive supporting character is Princess Unikitty. Unikitty mainly serves to provide a lot of cute and manic energy, while making a nice contrast to the humour from Batman. But Unikitty is more than just sparkles and sunshine, and is pretty formidable when she unleashes her anger.

 

Will Ferrell is also surprisingly fantastic at voicing the main villain Lord Business, and is able to make the character chilling, while also serving up some funny villainous gags. The final showdown and confrontation between Lord Business and Emmet are phenomenally well-written, and brought to life. Rather than go for an all-out action sequence, The LEGO Movie is instead mature enough to favour understanding over violence. Scenes like this elevate the film from just being a kid's film, to a film that is wonderful for the whole family. Acting as a side-villain to Lord Business, we have Liam Neeson as a literal Good Cop/Bad Cop character. Liam Neeson is universally known for having such an amazing voice, and his voice acting in The LEGO Movie is certainly no exception. Although he’s only a side villain, Liam Neeson is able to be chilling as Bad Cop, but be hilarious as Good Cop, and he therefore makes a fantastic side-villain for Lord Business.

 

Of course, something that has to be discussed when talking about The LEGO Movie is its beautiful animation. This film builds multiple CGI worlds, but manages to make them entirely faithful towards the traditional LEGO appearance. Being intended to be made of the original LEGO bricks, the CGI is a mix of smooth gliding movements, and stop motion camera techniques to demonstrate the movement of LEGO characters. One of the things that I’m also really glad of, is the fact that the film actually makes use of everything being made of LEGO, rather than it just being made out of LEGO for the sake of it. This isn't a film that just happens to be made out of LEGO, it's made out of LEGO for a reason, to the point where it's essential to the plot of the film. Unfortunately, some of the action sequences are my only serious problems with The LEGO Movie. Action sequences in this film are surprisingly large in quantity. However, they are hit and miss in terms of what they look like. Many action sequences will see loads of things going on in the foreground and background, such as smoke billowing out of vents, lasers being shot in all directions, and cars chasing each other across roads. Due to the fact that literally everything is made out of LEGO (even water and steam), this can be a little overwhelming, to the point where it's difficult to work out what's going on. During these scenes, they’ll be too much going on on the screen, and these scenes really could have been better if there wasn't so much going on in each frame.

 

In conclusion, The LEGO Movie is a surprisingly wonderful family film, with a unique concept and plot going for it, as well as some excellent and varied characters, mature and meaningful morals with some stellar CGI creations. The LEGO Movie truly is one of the best family films in recent years, and definitely deserves all the acclaim it gets.

 

 

The LEGO Movie



9/10