REVIEW
I got to see a sneak preview of The Lego Movie on Saturday, and let me tell you, it was awesome! Really, I kid you not. Go see it.
If you enjoy Legos or your kids play with Legos, this is a great family film. I must admit, it starts off a little slow, and gets kinda sappy toward the end, but overall, a great flick.
The plot is wonderful in that it confronts the largest friction in the Lego community — use of sets with instructions vs. use of a box of random Legos that you just build with. The hero of the story, Emmett, lives in a city run by President Business (known secretly as evil mastermind Lord Business), and everything is constructed based on instructions. In fact, the people of this little Lego city only follow instructions.
However, there is a secret underground of master builders who don’t like the instructions and can look at a set of pieces and build almost anything from them.
Emmett catches a glimpse of master builder Wyldestyle, and stumbles onto the Piece of Resistance, the piece which is prophecized to be found by the “Special” and able to defeat Lord Business and his evil weapon, the Kragle.
Wyldestyle brings Emmett to the other master builders and the race is on to see if they can outwit Lord Business and stop the destruction of the universe.
It’s a really fun film with lots of cool cultural references. One of my favorite characters is Good Cop/Bad Cop, played by Liam Neeson. Anyone with Legos knows that many characters change facial expressions by simply rotating the head (on the front of the head is a happy face, on the back is a sad face. When you stick hair or helmet on the head, you can’t see the second face). Well, it’s hilarious each time Bad Cop, mid-sentence spins his head around to become Good Cop, changing his voice and demeanor, too.
I don’t recall their being any parts of the film that would be particularly frightening for small children, but I was having such a lovely time, I may not have noticed. As always, if you have small kids and you’re concerned about movie content, go to With Kids in Mind. They are the best site out there to tell you what’s in a movie.
Definitely go see this movie if you’ve ever played with Legos. Two thumbs AND two big toes up! My son loves Legos and has introduced me to two phrases I’ll drop on you: RIP – rest in pieces and BURP – big ugly rock piece (this is particular to fans of Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings sets, which often come with big random rocks that Lego lovers apparently hate).
The movie comes out tomorrow, Feb. 7. I’m going to end this post with the movie trailer: