A film based off of a popular toy? Could it work? With this, yes! It definitely can! Phil Lord and Chris Miller once again prove themselves to be amazing filmmakers and bring a simple set of Lego toys to life in the funniest, most emotional way you can imagine!
Emmet (Chris Pratt) is an average construction worker who lives a mundane routine life and nothing extraordinary ever happens to him. UNTIL! The evil Lord Business plans to use a super weapon to change the entire world to the way he wants it and so a group of master builders band together to stop him. Emmet gets caught up in this epic battle when he becomes fused with the ‘piece of resistance’ and must force himself to become the hero that everyone thinks he can’t be. It’s a real epic story and the fact that it’s made out of Lego makes it just like a story from a child’s imagination. It’s got some great action scenes, some really great comedy and a surprising amount of heart and actual emotion.
The voice acting from all of the cast is perfect too. Chris Pratt as Emmet is funny and yet very naive. He’s a great everyman and standard Lego minifigure character but soon aspires to be something better so that he can help out his friends. This is his story and he really shines as the hero in training. Elizabeth Banks is Wyldstyle, a master builder who finds Emmet and tries to help him unleash his full potential. She’s a badass and gets lots of great lines and action. Morgan Freeman is great as Vitruvius the elderly master and Will Ferrell is suitably evil as Lord Business, shouting at his minions and determined to get his own way. Nick Offerman, Alison Brie and Charlie Day all have great supporting roles, as does Liam Neeson and the hilarious Bad Cop/Good Cop, leader of the police force trying to catch Emmet. One of the standouts though is Will Arnett as a cocky, self assured Batman. He speaks with a gruff voice, thinks he’s the coolest guy in the world and repeatedly tells everyone about it. It’s no wonder he was the first to get his own spin-off movie, he’s hilarious!
Being an animated movie, this is all special effects. Luckily, they’re fantastic! The entire world is literally made of Lego. Everything is built with real blocks and looks exactly like a real Lego world would look, just a little shinier. It all looks so wonderful and is straight out of the imagination of a child playing with their own little Lego sets. And it isn’t just the effects that bring the world to life, it’s the music. Mark Motherbaugh has created a great score, but as well as that one of the best, catchiest and most awesome theme songs ever! ‘Everything is Awesome!!!‘ is a pretty stupid song when you really look at it. It’s dumb and sounds like it was written by children. But that’s exactly why it works in this movie. It’s so much fun! It’s super catchy and I still find myself singing it to this day.
Phil Lord and Chris Miller knocked it out of the park with the ‘21 Jump Street‘ reboot films, but they’ve knocked this one all the way out into space. It’s such a layered movie and for what is essentially a kid’s film, it has so much for adults to enjoy too. It’s funny and emotional, more so than you’d think, and action packed with great characters and special effects. All in all, everything really is awesome.
JACK’S SCORE: 5/5
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