Rating
Synopsis
Emmet (Chris Pratt) is a law abiding lego construction worker who gets corrupted by beautiful stranger, Wildstyle (Elizabeth Banks), when he gets a large piece of lego stuck to his back. With the ultra original tag of “The Special One”, it is up to Emmet and a team of familiar super heroes to stop the bad guy, Lord Business (Will Ferrell), from destroying the world and all it’s legoey inhabitants
MPAA Rating
Rated PG for mild action and rude humour – although I counted zero fart jokes so I don’t see what’s so rude about it
Plot
Lord Business (Ferrell) is a bad dude who has built up the perfect city. Everything runs like clockwork and everybody seems to be happy – they even have Taco Tuesdays, where every citizen gets a free taco. Em… maybe it’s just me, but that seems pretty awesome. In fact the only thing that isn’t awesome is the stupid “Everything is Awesome” song everyone insists on singing every 15 minutes! Anyway, like anyone who has created a working city in Sim City, Lord (or President) Business is pretty damn proud of himself and wants everything to stay as is, so he has come up with a plan to freeze everything in place using an artifact he has discovered called “The Kragl” – it’ll make sense when you watch it.
Emmet is a, let’s be honest, pretty simple construction worker living his life according to the instructions. Every morning he follows the same routine in order to be a happy, productive lego … person. One day after work, Emmet notices a person breaking into his construction site and digging around frantically. Concerned, Emmet decides to report the intruder, that is until he sees her pretty face and forgets how to function – we’ve all been there lads!
Deciding to go say howdy, Emmet falls down a hole and after an elaborate ping pong journey, he lands at the bottom and spots what the lady lego ninja was looking for – the Piece of Resistance, the only thing capable of defeating the Kragl. Compelled to touch it, Emmet has crazy visions and passes out. When he awakes he has the Piece of Resistance stuck to his back and is in the custody of Bad Cop (Liam Neeson), Business’ evil henchman, who takes him to Lord Business to likely meet some sort of sticky end.
Lord Business explains his master plan to Emmet – as any good movie bad guy would – but before he can harm him, our mysterious stranger is back and rescues Emmet and they escape. Turns out she is Wildstyle (Banks), an all action lego lady, who believes that Emmet is “The Special One” that a prophesy has foretold of. She brings Emmet to meet Gandalf Vitruvius (Morgan Freeman), a mumbling, blind master builder. Vetruvius explains that Lord Business captured all the other master builders and that only Emmet can stop him, free the master builders and throw some sort of cool block party (pun intended)
Will Vetruvius and Wildstyle find out that Emmet is pretty useless at… well almost everything? Will Lord Business get to have his perfect world? Will there be some underlying message about how office jobs and conformity is ruining creativity and free expression? Only this movie has the answers.
Pros
- The fast pace of the action will keep the kids entertained
- Will Arnett makes a good Batman
- Has some funny moments
- Arguably Lego having a poke at itself for the manner in which Lego has progressed over the last 30 years
Cons
- Not quite up to the standard you would get from a Pixar movie
- Not enough funny moments
- Most jokes and surprise gags seem strained and predictable
Verdict
Everything is … meh Far from what the opening scene’s (and every second scene’s) annoying tune suggests, the movie doesn’t live up to the self appointed tag of awesome. Jokes seem strained and obvious, characters not quite interesting (or understandable) enough and the storyline is just a mix of several others – from the Orwellian Lord Business to the Matrix-esque special one rehash. I know it’s a kids’ movie but there has got to be a bit more to keep the adults entertained – even if we’re only adults through physical age (and condition). This movie has some redeeming features, notably Will Arnett’s Batman and Jonah Hill’s cameo as The Green Lantern which added some fresh humour when things were getting stale. Overall though it still made me feel like it was one big advertisement for Lego…. which it was. 5.5/10