Checked out Lego Movie 2 tonight… finally. This one follows The Lego Movie, Lego Batman, and Lego Ninjago movies… which might be one too many Lego movies. I dunno.
All I can say for sure is that I found Lego Movie 2’s first half to be boring and uninspired enough to make me wonder if the original Lego Movie was any good. But the final act of Lego 2 saved the movie with some fun twists and good messages about siblings and the difference in how boys and girls play.
But, yeah, a lot of the front half of the film just wasn’t working for me. I’m not sure if that was due to the jokes falling flat, the insertion of a mixed bag of songs, or the plot just being pretty standard stuff. I had the feeling the movie was more focused on being a kids movie that tossed in random jokes for adults… which might not be too shocking a thought except that the Lego movie (the first one) just felt like an animated movie targeted at everyone.
But the movie does pull through in the final act. Unlike the first film, this one doesn’t hide the fact the Lego world is mostly an analogy for kids playing with their toys in the real world. It clues us in on that early which kind of means there’s some predictability but I think the movie pulls a twist that works. It doesn’t change too much the analogy… like what the Sis-Star planet is (the sister’s room) or the Stairgate (the door at the top of the stairs)… but it does change – or introduce – the movie’s message which was clever and sweet.
The frame story of the boy and his little sister (and their mom played by Maya Rudolph) worked well… almost in that end-of-toy-story-3 kind of way (*sniff*). It certainly worked better than the frame story of the first flick… which was clever but also quite jarring. This one is worked better into the story.
So, yeah, a really mixed review. The first part felt, to me, as dire as the Lego Ninjago movie. But the final act was probably better than anything in the first Lego movie. I wish they had spent more time on the script or the pacing or whatever since the movie did so much right at the end, I almost forgive it its mistakes.
Score: 74