Evan Fox
Entertainment Editor
Debuting at the top of the box office this weekend, “The LEGO Movie” earns its spot among the great animated films.
The story follows Emmet, a regular worker who discovers he is the “Special” one destined to save the world from Lord Business, who wants to glue everything together.
While the premise is simple, the execution is brilliant. Seeing how all of the different types of LEGO sets exist together is great. The animators’ creativity is something to behold, with all the different backgrounds, worlds and vehicles crammed into the film.
Watching the Master Builder characters create outlandish vehicles and items out of random pieces harkens back to anyone’s childhood. The movie tugs at every adults’ childhood memories while entertaining the children in the audience.
The satire is razor sharp, and jokes never fall flat. The audience was constantly laughing, and the ending had quite a few parents sniffling.
Almost every major franchise is touched upon, really selling the shared universe between all the licensed LEGO sets. Also, the “relics” were a great self-reference to the LEGO universe, with the Band-Aids and other items being powerful items.
The ensemble cast is perfect. Chris Pratt (“Parks and Recreation”) capably sells the everyman as Emmet. Will Ferrell is great as Lord Business and really sells the surprisingly touching ending.
The rest of the cast includes Morgan Freeman, Elizabeth Banks, and Charlie Day as the main supporting cast, while Will Arnett (“Arrested Development”) plays a hilarious Batman. Liam Neeson is memorable as the schizophrenic Bad Cop/Good Cop.
There are also some great cameos, especially a really good bit between Superman (Channing Tatum) and Green Lantern (Jonah Hill).
The animations are eye candy, on par with any Pixar film. The action sequences are particularly good, along with the morphing of buildings and vehicles.
Everything came together to form a wonderful movie for all ages. With a sequel hilariously set up, here’s to looking forward to jumping back into what is sure to be a great new franchise.