The LEGO Movie

As a toy, Lego has always been one that rests on imagination.  You are given interlocking pieces of different sizes and shapes, and you can build until either your ideas reach an end or the blocks do.  As a child, I would sit on my bedroom floor with pieces strewn about me, ready to be assembled into whatever shape would fit the elaborate story my mind was concocting.  This has always been the power of the toy, and it is easy to say that The Lego Movie not only told a great and fun story, but also perfectly nailed the spirit behind the toy.

It is a world that consists of only Lego, which may just seem like an interesting concept to others, people of artistic or construction based minds can spend much of the film marveling over how the toy was incorporated and inserted into every structure, vehicle, or object.  Where animated films generally just create environments, The Lego Movie created them based in the realm of the toy, which meant every single thing in the movie (right down to smoke and water), needed to be able to be created from actual pieces.  While the story was unfolding, it was hard to not continually marvel at how it was all design, how pieces were used, and the layered concept behind the creation of the environment.

Visually, it was stunning, and I would quickly watch the film again just to pay more attention to how the background was constructed.  A portion of the film used stop motion, which I felt really kept a trueness to what a world made of Lego would be.  Apparently there were almost four million pieces used in this movie, and I read that if you were to reconstruct everything you would need over 15 million pieces.  I find myself just blown away by the creative minds that were able to envision the physical landscape in the kind of way needed to pull it off.

Mixed in with all of the beauty of the movie was the story of an extremely normal Lego construction worker named Emmett (Chris Pratt) who stumbles onto something special and finds out that he is the one who was prophesied to save the Lego universe from the plans of the evil President Business (Will Ferrell).  He gets help from Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks), one of the remains ‘master builders’ (someone who is able to create amazing and unique objects from the Lego pieces around them), who takes Emmett to meet the wizard Vitruvius (Morgan Freeman) and gains help from the ever so awesome and helpful Batman (Will Arnett).  The base may follow the overly used ‘chosen one’ story line, but it does it in a fresh and innocent way, and when the entire concept of the story is revealed, the whole tale becomes very touching and endearing.

Director’s Christopher Miller and Phil Lord really set the bar for what an all-ages film can be.  The sentiment of the story can hit the hearts of both children and adults, as well as delivering a very entertaining film.  As well as being a viscerally stimulating experience, there are multiple levels of humour that engage both children and adults.  While the kids get to laugh at the fun comedy that lays on the surface (something the adults also get to laugh at) the keen eyes get to gain joy in some of the subtle nuances of the film as well as some of the pop culture references that make their way into the movie.

Of course, all of this would be for not if the actors were delivering monotone performances, and believe me, they sure were not.  This is one of the best voiced animations I have seen since Toy Story, as all of the actors seemed to just be completely throwing themselves into their roles fully.  While I was watching the movie, I was imagining the people sitting in front of a microphone, reading their lines with their faces contorting and arms flailing wildly as they completely got sucked into their roles.  This was not just the case with the main cast, but with side characters and cameos as well.  I could write and write about how amazing Liam Neeson was as Good Cop/Bad Cop, and how adorable yet dementedly crazy Alison Brie was as Unikitty.  There are too many names to bring up in this conversation, as it was incredible from top to bottom.

When I left the theatre, I was stuck thinking about the movie more and more.  I wanted to head to my parent’s house and try to uncover the old boxes of Lego, and start to become a master builder myself.  That movie worked on me.  While perhaps some may worry that it could be a feature length commercial for the toy, it was not.  The reality is that it was a feature length tribute to the spirit of imagination that the toy brings out in people… how it can turn children into sophisticated architects and turn adults into children, and it succeeded perfectly.

Rating – 4 out of 4 stars