Stars: Will Arnett, Zach Galifianakis, Michael Cera, Rosario Dawson, Ralph Fiennes, Jenny Slate
Director: Chris McKay
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars
I find it amusing when people talk about movies like The Lego Movie being a commercial, as if
Frozen or Despicable Me aren’t built entirely to launch a thousand toys,
pillowcases, night lights, and Halloween costumes as well. The
Lego Movie just took a known property, and then built the movie around it,
something that has since been done by pictures such as Trolls and The Emoji Movie. Yet The
Lego Movie was something else-a truly funny, successful picture with
likable characters, quotable dialogue, and a solid amount of in-the-know
winking, mainly mocking the concept of the “chosen one” narrative. It was genuinely the best Animated Movie of
2014, and made my Top 10 list that year, so I was curious to see how its
off-shoot (there’s no indication that this is a sequel other than it features
the same vocal cast, as I don’t recall hearing a single allusion to the
previous movie) would succeed-could the same sort of magic come back, or would
we have diminishing returns?
(Spoilers Ahead) The
movie centers around Batman (Arnett), the same brooding, self-important and
loner hero that has been the centerpiece of decades of cinema. The movie smartly avoids an origin story, as
everyone knows the origin of Batman by heart (George-and-Martha Wayne don’t
need to die ever again-we all know how they’re going to turn out…same goes for
Uncle Ben), and instead dives right into the ego-centric side of Batman, intent
on warding out villainy without any connection to actual humanity, and
frequently baiting criminals with his actions.
Think of how many of Batman’s foes are driven almost exclusively to
defeat him, rather than any other
motives driving them to their insane acts of violence. It’s also worth noting, and noted often in
the film, that Batman doesn’t necessarily end crime, but instead is just
fighting off a constant cycle of it in the crime-soaked land of Gotham City.
The movie focuses on Barbara Gordon (Dawson), the new Police
Commissioner, trying to put Batman into retirement through crime-solving
measures. She is joined in being annoyed
by Batman by the Joker (Galifianakis), who wants Batman to admit that the Joker
matters to him and that he is his arch-nemesis, that he truly hates him rather than just is fighting
him off. The movie follows similar beats
to past Batman movies, where he has to count on a band of heroes and eventually
villains (but not before they get a really shady one-liner in against Suicide Squad) to defeat Joker, who is
joined by a plethora of villains from other franchises (Sauron, King Kong,
Voldemort…only Lego could get these many properties under one umbrella) and
then saves the day.
The movie’s plot is pretty simple, but it is a winner due to
the wonderful vocal performances, particularly Arnett & Galifianakis, both
gamely skewering their comic book personas while also creating actual
characters. It is also quite clever,
finding ways to both hero-worship and mercilessly mock the rest of the Batman
franchise. The best bit of the movie
would be when Joker is listing off the villains he’s teaming with, starting
with the iconic (Penguin, Catwoman, Bane), and then moving into the absurd
(like Condiment King). The hilarious
part of this is that every villain he actually lists is indeed a villain from
some point in the DC franchise, and the only disappointing aspect here is they
didn’t fit my personal favorite (ridiculous) Batman villain, Lady Penelope
Peasoup, into the lineup. These pop
culture asides occasionally have diminishing returns (they feel like easy, and
sometimes repetitive laughs), but particularly in the movie’s first half
it’s hard to argue that they aren’t funny.
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