The Lego Movie

Phil Lord and Chris Miller have only been around for a few years, but they already have some serious pedigree. First up was 2009's under seen but widely praised Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs. Next they gave us one of the best comedies of recent years with 21 Jump Street and, lets be honest, who saw that coming. Recently they've given us the worthy Brooklyn Nine-Nine television series, but now they return to their computer animated cinematic roots with The Lego Movie which, despite not hitting the heights of their earlier output, still has enough original thoughts and laugh out loud moments to make it one of the films of the year so far. The storyline is as standard (basically good vs evil) as it is gets, so lets concentrate on other aspects. First up are the visuals which, despite being computer animated, have been done in such a way that it comes across as stop motion, deftly reflecting the way you would use Lego piece by piece in reality. It's a smart touch. In respect of the humour it's Lord and Millers usual mix of jokes for the adults (there's plenty of satire in here, mainly based on the characters happiness about everything - see (or hear) the films signature tune - "Everything Is Awesome") and colourful mayhem for kids. Lord and Miller also utilise the physical traits of the Lego characters in a number of imaginative ways (Liam Neeson is a police officer who has a two-sided head which means he literally changes between Good Cop / Bad Cop) and nostalgia abounds in many places, not least with the appearance of the astronaut figure with worn-out logo and broken helmet. The film does have couple of problems though. The first is that it's just too manic for it's own good and things start to get exhausting rather than staying constantly thrilling (and on that note some of the action scenes are so briskly edited it's hard to tell what's going on - listen out for a Wilhelm Scream though!). Secondly. and somewhat spoiling the whole party, the ending is truly terrible as we partially enter the "real" world in order to tie up a number of plot points. No doubt it happens due to what must have been agreed with the Lego company itself (and its marketing concerns) in the pre-filming negotiations, but it means the production limps over the finish line. Rating: 7/10.