The Lego Movie, 2013, Warner Bros. Pictures. Directed by Chris
Miller and Phil Lord. Starring Will Ferrell, Morgan Freeman, Will Arnett, Chris
Pratt, Elizabeth Banks and Liam Neeson.
In the late 90s and early 2000s,
films based on toys were made slightly differently than how they are today. In
a world of Pokemon 2000, Bratz the Movie and Barbie of Swan Lake, the emphasis was most definitely on marketing
the brand, kiddiewinks forcing their poor parents to watch under-budgeted and
over-hyped feature length adverts for a new piece of plastic which would be
most likely forgotten about in a week or so (I should know, I was one of those
kiddiewinks. Sorry about that Mum).
But then Transformers happened. Despite being too long, too enamoured with
the military and somehow made giant CGI robots hitting each other dull, it
coined a baffling amount of money and changed the expectation and aesthetic of
toy films. Gone are the days of sloppy animation and short running times, now films
like GI Joe and Battleship have budgets in the hundreds of millions and massive set
pieces which have little to nothing to do with the toy they’re selling
you. Seriously, GI Joe 2 blew up all of London, which itself is quickly becoming a
trend (what’s wrong with London, movies? Don’t you like the bikes or something?)
They’re also overwhelmingly cynical, trying to hide their toy origins with whole
scale destruction and strangely dour plots. Toy movies are indistinguishable from the rest
of Hollywood action, any spark of genius whittled away to nothing to make the
toy fit the mould.
Yay, millions are dead and the
entire country’s
infrastructure and soul has been destroyed! Go GI Joe!
So when a massively budgeted film
about Lego was announced for a Valentine’s Day release, I was surprised to see
how much people truly loved it. Mark Kermode made it his film of the week, my
Facebook feed was littered with gushing reviews; even the man in Starbucks
demanded that I see it that day. And after watching it and needing two weeks to
digest it fully, I can finally say with thoughtful conviction:
OH MY GOD YOU GUYS THIS MOVIE
ROCKS!
Ahhhhhh! It’s so damn good!
Ahem.
Directed by Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs maestros Chris Miller and Phil
Lord, The Lego Movie seems to have a
real debt not to Transformers, but to
Aardman, its relentless charm coming from a real passion for film making and
the medium they’ve chosen. Though it’s totally computer animated, it always
looks like Lego, the way that Aardman films always look like plasticine. It
appears that the film’s one rule is that it must always be made of Lego, right
down to the flames, background buildings and crashing waves. It may sound cheap,
but the effect is a brilliant, immersive and three dimensional one.
But don't try an recreate this at home, it'll only lead to heartbreak and alcohol
Its endlessly creative use of
the medium to builds an entire Lego universe, encompassing the old with the new
with gleeful abandon. Looking around, the only bits of Lego I have in my house
are the Wii games for Harry Potter, Lord
of the Rings, Star Wars and Indiana
Jones. Lego has evolved with its core audience of children (and unemployed
graduates, apparently) to keep a sense of play and creation at the heart of its
brand in an iPad world. And The Lego
Movie totally understands this, showing Superman, Darth Vader, Batman and
Gandalf alongside unlicensed characters like Space Guy and Construction Worker
Man. Original characters like President Business (voiced by Will Ferrell in one
of his better roles of late) and Vitruvius (a brilliantly cast Morgan Freeman) fit
so well in with this madcap array of famous faces it’s hard to imagine Lego
itself without them.
It is an antidote to the super
serious and boring toy films of recent years; it’s full of background gags in a
way that reminded me of Monty Python, before
those jokes became tired from out of context use by nerds who think parroting
one-liners is a decent replacement for a sense of humour. It also gently
reminds people that whilst it is possible to fully delight in children’s toys
and films, taking those things away and obsessing over them to the point where
you yourself can find no fun in them anymore is probably not healthy. Or
interesting. So I’m not going to talk about the flaws in the film (but the
ending is a bit iffy, somewhat implying that girls will always ruin the boys
fun, always) and I’m not going to search for great insight in the minute
details. All I’ll say now is that it’s massively bonkers, enormously good fun
and you’re guaranteed to leave the cinema with a huge grin on your face, singing Everything Is Awesome with only a trace of irony.
Everything is awesome indeed.
