Back when the original The Lego Movie came out in 2014, expectations for a movie about talking Legos were extremely low. Not considering myself a part of the film’s demographic, I would have normally ignored the film had I not had three baby brothers who were all eagerly excited to see a Lego version of Batman beat up a bunch of other toys.
In a classic case of “don’t judge a book by its cover”, I instantly fell in love with its zany, fast-paced humor, amazing animation, and heart-felt message that told children it’s ok to break away from social norms.
Apparently, I wasn’t the only one surprised by how good The Lego Movie was. It went on to make over $400 million at the box office, currently sitting at a 95% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes and spawning two spin-offs and a sequel.
So now here we are, five years later with The Lego Movie 2 and expectations are definitely much higher than its predecessor. Could it possibly live up to the hype? Unfortunately for me, I don’t think it does. However, that does not take away from how great this movie is.
In The Lego Movie 2, we follow our heroes from the original movie, Emmett (voiced by Chris Pratt), Lucy (Elizabeth Banks), and Batman (Will Arnett) five years after the first movie’s ending. They find themselves living in an apocalyptic world invaded by Lego DUPLO sets (it makes sense in the film). Our heroes go on a journey to defeat the invaders and save their universe for all of man-kind, or for all Lego-kind rather.
The best part of this movie is the humor. With Phil Lord and Chris Miller returning to pen the screenplay, the jokes are just as fast-paced and as hilarious as the original. What made the first Lego Movie such a hit beyond its intended demographic was its clever use of pop culture references that appealed to adults as well. This movie does the same, albeit maybe with too many obscure references.
There are a number of pretty funny musical numbers that take place throughout the film, one in particular that relies on a specific plot-twist that had everyone in the theater laughing hysterically.
Among the voice actors added to the film, Tiffany Haddish is definitely the stand out. Voicing the Queen of the DUPLO invaders, she injects her own eccentric personality into this already energetic and surreal film.
What keeps this from being as good as the original for me mostly has to do with the plot. While not necessarily bad, it does tend to have some pacing issues in its story-telling that brought me out of the film a couple times. There’s a big reveal in the first movie (which I won’t spoil) that changed everything up and made the original something special. Now that the cat’s out of the bag in this sequel, it is difficult to have that same emotional attachment again which makes the story not flow as well as I hoped.
However, one of the overall themes this movie carries is something that I think many kids and every adult should take away, and that is that sometimes not everything in life is going to be perfect all of the time, and that is fine. Taking these complex ideas and injecting them into art to reach beyond the conventional audience is something I admire about many animated films. It turns these movies that I am usually dragged into seeing by my little ones into something that I actually look forward to discussing with my peers.
Not only is The Lego Movie 2 hilarious, but it also has great themes to sit and ponder about, and I definitely recommend that people see it…especially if you feel like you’ve out-grown the building blocks phase.
