The Legos Movie - The Quirky Movie that Makes Everything Awesome

The Legos Movie advertised last year at Comic Con and for some reason I thought they were kidding. Legos is a big attraction every year, building life size lego creations like Lego Hulk, Lego Ninja Turtles, Lego Ironman and more. So naturally, any idea I think is ridiculous gets magically tucked away into oblivion.

Then it happened. It came to the theaters and my friend James squeals "You must see this movie!" And I put it on my "To Do List into Oblivion," which means I will get to it whenever my apartment sets on fire. Well luckily my apartment didn't get set on fire, but I was invited to go see it with another friend who was interested. So here I was sitting in the theater thinking, OK, this can only be minorly good, but it did get a good rating so I expect decent. Maybe terrible, but stupid funny. Or maybe horrible. Horrible sounds correct.

Nobody pisses Batman off, not even you Reptar

First Impressions:

So after watching the movie, my conclusion was it wasn't bad. Its quirky, light-hearted, playful, and cute. I enjoy watching animations that delve into different worlds and witnessing what the world's "biggest fears" are. In Toy Story it was the fear of being forgotten or no longer the child's favorite toy, in Monster's Inc it was a child accidentally following you back into the monster world, in Wreck-it Ralph it was being shut down forever.

The Legos movie was no different. Their greatest fear was called "The Kragle" which was a play on "Krazy Glue" with some of the words missing from old use. But there is more to it, even though I thought the story was way too close to formula standards and all the jokes were obvious, the morals of the story were great overall. It talked about how everyone was the special if you believed it and that you can create anything [which is a big Legos marketing theme...and ploy to sell more over priced legos if you ask me].

The Story:

Obviously some one farted...guess who?

The story is about an ordinary plain Lego workman named Emmet who tries to fit in as much as he can into the very orderly world he lives in. However one day he ends up falling down a hole in the construction site and survives with a lego piece now attached to his back. From there everyone hilariously mistakens him as "The Special" or "Master Builder." So Emmet goes from scene to scene with Wyldstyle and the wise one, Vitruvius as they try to gather a team of Master Builders to stop the evil President Business from unleashing "The Kragle." The best part is even though they play on Emmet's boringness and horrible ideas, they actually become useful in times of crisis. Including a double decker couch that ends up surviving the destruction of the underwater vehicle they built. Its this wonderful playful poking of Emmet's unspecial like qualities is what makes the movie great among the very random backgrounds and situations they encounter together.

Characters:

Doesn't this scene just scream "Merica?"

If you are really into legos or internet/pop culture in general you will be very happy to see a plethora of different characters. There is Lego Batman, probably the most awesome lego of all that pretty much does all the leg work with his inventions and cunningness. You also have Unikitty, a lego cat/unicorn character that reminds me a LOT of a mix of new style My Little Pony and the Nyan Nyan Cat.

There is also a pirate lego man whose body is made of various parts, a spaceship lego man named Benny [who is dying to build a spaceship], Wyldstyle which is a Matrix like character, Vitruvius which is like Gandalf, but there IS a Gandalf and Dumbledore in the movie [which makes it more funny and confusing]. You also have Lincoln, Han Solo and Chewie, The Statue of Liberty, Michelangelo [the turtle], Robots, Superman, etc. The list truly is infinite in this story. Its great to see the whole lego universe get mentioned without playing too far into each one.

Animation:

The animation was a mix of stop motion and 3D animation that for the most part was seamless with each other. The stop motion though was very obvious when they did it because it was considerably choppy, giving the Legos even more of a toy feeling than before. Sometimes the choppiness can be distracting and I'm still curious why they chose to mix the two instead of do one or the other. I don't mind stop motion animation [I loved Wallace and Grommet and the Nightmare Before Christmas after all], but I am curious why they decided certain scenes even needed it while others did not.

What I wanted to destroy in Lego Land:

This is the military's new slogan during the budget crisis

1. Everything is Awesome:

Geez. This song truly rivals "Its a small world" in annoyance. Stupid song gets stuck in my head whenever I think about it. Its the easiest lyrics on the planet to remember and has this sweet, poppy, bubble gummy tune makes me want to punch babies. GET IT OUT OF MY HEAD! GET IT OUT NOW!

2. Mid-Air Building:

I know the movie plays a lot on fantasy building on the fly. That's fine. But seriously...it gets old when people are falling to their doom and have the capability to build in mid-air to save themselves. I mean...come on, there has to be a limit to that!

3. Building and Destroying:

What was the point of this world where they would build all day and destroy a bunch of shit? Half of the beginning was smashing buildings and building stuff. I thought this was supposed to be orderly building? Did I get this confused? I still don't understand what the hell was going on in that beginning montage besides that stupid "Everything is Awesome" song playing and everyone dancing while working. Damn you legos.

4. Short Man Complex:

President Business had REALLY OBVIOUS short man complex with those giant stilt boots. He
also has a large dose of OCD and anal retentiveness. You got other issues we need to know about, Mr. Crazy?

AND YOU SHALL BRING ME A SHRUBBERY!

5. Think Tank - Unexplained:
I'm really curious how the Think Tank works. With all of these master builders everywhere you would think the whole room would be total freaken chaos. Instead the room is created to use their imagination power to create instructions for the brainless citizens out there. So how does the Think Tank create chaos into order? THAT is the bigger mystery here...not how to defeat President Business and the Kragle.

6. The Kid Built What?:

Without going too far into it...there was a LOT of stuff that was built in this movie and the height requirement didn't match. Lets just say that. Plus....he built some complicated shit. Just saying. Kids talented as crap. Glad some one recognized it toward the end.

7. Punchlines:

I know, I know. I am being picky, but I was very sensitive to how formula like the punchlines were. It was almost like clockwork and so obvious I couldn't help, but sigh a lot of times. There is not a lot of originality with the puns in the Legos movie. I wish the creators dug just a WEE bit deeper on making this more just funny to the specific product than play off of fifty other character universes. You know what I mean? Its hard to explain, but there was an edge missing that could have made it that much better.


So in essence, I say this movie is worth taking the kids to and even the girlfriend/wife [she might smile a little too]. Its clean, funny, quick paced and enjoyable for everyone. And if she complains, just tell her, "What are you talking about? EVERYTHING IS AWESOME!" Then start break dancing horribly in front of her and everything will be good.

What did you think of the Legos Movie? Comment Below!

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DnD Rating: 8/1O

After Movie Cool Shit? No. However there are some neat animations during the beginning credits.