Then, in 2005, the first Lego Star Wars game was released, and the goalposts gradually began to shift. Intended primarily for children, the simple but detailed gameplay and mischievous humour won over adult audiences, too. I watched most of this and some of the subsequent games from over Mr B's shoulder, charmed but not quite enough to give it a go myself.
It took a bored moment plus the first Lego Batman game for me to be ready to have a go, and the puzzle solving proved addictive; by the time Lego Marvel Superheroes was released, I was hooked. By this point, any family sci-fi or fantasy movie franchise worth its salt seemed to have its own Lego tie-in, and Lego Batman in particular was fast becoming an icon of his own accord.
I was intrigued and not a little excited, therefore, to hear about the release of The Lego Movie, which promised to apply the aesthetic sensibilities and fast-paced humour of the games to an entirely new story with original characters as well as a number of old favourites.
Our hero in this tale Emmett (voiced by Chris Pratt), a bog-standard Lego construction worker who lives in the city and spends his days following the rigid set of instructions issued to all citizens in order to help them live happy, productive lives. He's happy, too, secure in the knowledge that he's one of the guys just like everybody else, working under the benign dictatorship of President Business (Will Ferrell), whose company Octan seems to sponsor all activity within the city boundaries. Sure, independent thought is actively discouraged, but who needs it?
All this changes, however, one evening, when a random gust of wind blows a set of instructions out of Emmett's grasp just as he's about to head to the sports bar with the rest of the gang. He follows it down a mysterious hole, eventually landing up stuck to a mysterious red object that triggers a terrifying sequence of visions. Shortly afterwards he encounters the free-spirited Wyldstyle (not her real name), who informs him that he is the Special, the single most unique person in the universe, and the only one capable of saving it. Trapped between disbelief and some incredibly seductive stripy plastic hair, Emmett decides to do his best to live up to her expectations in a world that grows more baffling and dangerous by the second.
The good
Before watching this one, I couldn't shake the nagging worry that it might just be an extended toy commercial - after all, how couldn't it be? I'll give my opinion on this later on, but for the moment, it feels more important to point out all the positive messages the movie carries. It's arguably the most subversive family film since Wes Anderson's glorious Fantastic Mr. Fox, overtly encouraging its young audience to question authority and trust in their own instincts and abilities. It takes a cheerfully tolerant attitude to its protagonists and their foibles; each and every one of them are seen as deserving of love and gentle ribbing in equal measure.With all that out of the way, though... is it funny? Hell, yes, with the sort of scattergun speed normally only seen in some of Aardman Animations' more recent efforts. Vocal work is great across the board, and everyone will have their favourites - mine was Alison Brie's Unikitty, who I thought the embodiment of the modern working woman, feverishly cheerful and determined to imbue the same attitude in everyone around her. Kudos, too, to Chris Pratt as Emmett, while Will Arnett, playing Batman, steals every scene he's in.
It looks great, too, an entire world constructed from CGI bricks that serve not only as houses and cities but great flowing oceans. Oh, and spaceships. It would be very, very hard to forget the spaceships. The movie didn't quite succeed in making me stop worrying, but it certainly made me love the spaceships.
Am I sounding like a fangirl here? Okay, yes, probably guilty.
The bad
Some people are going to argue about a movie made by a series of giant corporations featuring a villain who runs a giant corporation. This is possibly true, but it makes narrative sense; besides, multinational empires really are evil - this being the case, I'd much rather they were evil and self-aware.I have more of an argument with the film's sheer relentlessness - it's colourful, it's loud and on the wrong day it could be considered a migraine in waiting. It's great for kids and the terminally short of attention span, but for a relaxing afternoon's entertainment? Perhaps not so much.
Finally, a live-action sequence at the end of the second act feels cloying and overly-sentimental; I was glad to note that despite featuring large amounts of film footage, the movie's video game tie-in largely omits this.
All of which brings us to the whole movie-as-toy-commercial gripe: there's only one real way I could know the information in the above paragraph. Just like there's only one real way I could know that the flower catapult in Unikitty's Cloud Cuckoo Land playset has a truly abysmal range.
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