A family isn't always just a father, mother and child.
Sometimes a family is a construction worker, a grumpy emo woman, a vigilante who'd rather punch criminals then face his problems, a crypid, a cyborg, and a 1980-something space guy.
In an era where the sheer amount of content we consume is relentless, a movie that actually surprises and delights feels rarer than...well, rarer than a kitty with a unicorn horn. When 2014′s The Lego Movie burst on the scene, it was able to surprise and delight just as much as a kitty with a unicorn horn and maybe even more. The wild success of the tale of Emmett Brickowski (Chris Pratt) and Wyldstyle/Lucy (Elizabeth Banks) saving the Lego universe from an evil tyrant who wants to glue everything into stasis led to a slew of (subpar) franchise offshoots, including The Lego Batman Movie and The Lego Ninjago Movie. Phil Lord and Christopher Miller are back again 5 years later as writer-directors to helm the sequel to the OG brick-building caper, picking up right where the first left off. Is this creation building upon a great foundation to become bigger and better than the first? Or is it more akin to stepping on a Lego in the middle of the night on the way to the bathroom and cursing every god known to the tongues of man? Well...
Much more the former than the latter! This sequel is smart, sharp, full of quick wit and dazzling visuals, and it explores the characters we know and love and gives them independent trajectories with some real emotional growth. Basically, Bricksburg has been destroyed due to the Duplo invaders that arrived at the end of the first film. Every time they rebuild, the Duplo agents find them and destroy them, so they live in a postapocalyptic shanty wasteland called Apocalypseburg, where everything and everyone is dark, edgy, gritty, and unappealing so as not to attract Duplo attention. Emmett is the only one who’s kept his sunny disposition and Lucy worries he’s too immature because of it. Another Duplo attack from General Mayhem (Stephanie Beatriz) leads to Lucy being kidnapped and taken to the Systar System to meet the queen there - Queen Watevra Wa’Nabi (Tiffany Haddish). Emmett chases after them to rescue Lucy, but gets waylaid in space and saved by Rex Dangervest (also Chris Pratt), a galaxy guarding space cowboy raptor trainer, who agrees to help Emmett save his friends. As these two plot threads begin to intertwine, it becomes clear that in spite of appearances, what’s really going on with the Legos is a result of real-world siblings Finn, from the first movie (Jadon Sand) and his little sister Bianca (Brooklynn Prince) fighting over their respective Lego creations. Bianca just wants to join their two imaginary worlds together, while Finn gets mad and smashes everything to pieces. It’s only when they realize they can have more fun together than apart that the citizens of their respective Lego worlds can be saved.
Some thoughts:
These movies are cram-packed in the best way with jokes, visual puns, sight gags, and fringe character sightings. They really bear repeat viewings because so many jokes and details are split-second or simply go by too quickly to really be savored.
More than anything, the animation is just BREATHTAKING. Like in the gif above - the little steam bubbles made of Legos that appear when Rex takes off his helmet. It’s a minute little detail but it takes literal world-building to a whole new level and I’m just so enamored with it.
I love the different homages to other genres that weren’t addressed in the first movie. We start off Mad Max style with the postapocalyptic vibes in the desert, then move on to a Star Wars-inspired rebel space odyssey. Even the big villain song feels very classic Disney, something very akin to “Poor Unfortunate Souls.”
I like the idea of Emmett and Rex’s conflict being about reconciling who you want to be vs. who you THINK you want to be. I feel like I say this every time I review a kids’ movie, but the good ones, the smart ones, are able to do this with such aplomb. Emmett doesn’t change for Lucy or for Bricksburg or for Rex. He grows as a result of his experiences and he learns from his past (and future) mistakes. That kind of growth is painful, and it’s elegantly done here in a movie aimed at people who are still figuring out who they want to be - and whether they want to be that for the wrong or the right reasons.
The Bruce Willis cameo might be my favorite cameo of the year so far.
I love the fresh blood brought to the principal cast, especially in the form of three amazing women of color - Tiffany Haddish as Queen Watevra Wa’Nabi, Stephanie Beatriz as General Mayhem, and Maya Rudolph as live action Mom. Each gets a juicy role to really dig in to, and each is fantastic in her own way.
None of the songs are quite the earworm that “Everything is Awesome” was (not even the purposefully earworm-y “Catchy Song”) but the music IS catchy and has all the fun and verve of the first film’s songs.
Overall, this doesn’t pack quite the same level of punch as the original but it just baaaaarely falls short, and that’s higher praise than I can give most films aimed at kids. This is still a sweet and visually stunning treat with a core that taps into some deep emotional issues. All in all, a worthy sequel that far surpasses the other spinoffs and extended universe entries in the franchise.
*Deep breaths in fictional character psychoanalysis* Wow isn't it wild that in getting stuck in Un-Dar the Dri-Ar and being forgotten from his point of view validates Emmet's fears of being forgettable and unimportant and how when he learned to move again out of spite he went on to modify his previously generic appearance and name and become a raptor trainer-spaceman-action hero-etcetera-etcetera so that he would never be boring or uninteresting and he'd never be forgotten again?
