The LEGO Movie opens today.
Both Rick and I wrote up little spoiler-free mini reviews. The short version: Go see the movie. It’s well worth the money, even if you’re not an “Adult Fan of LEGO” . Read on if you want to find out why.
“Not a Children’s Movie” by Will
The LEGO Movie is not for kids. Seriously. Sure, it’s a story set in a universe made almost entirely of toys, and grounded in the real world – anyone who had LEGO as a kid had at least one mysterious object like the “Cloak of Ban-da-id” show up in their LEGO bins. Kids will absolutely love this film. The squealing noise my niece makes whenever she sees Uni-Kitty on the trailer is proof of that. But that’s not the point. This movie is for adults. It’s for parents who complain that their kids don’t keep sets assembled for very long, or for anyone that asks “Why is there a penguin operating a forklift?” or “What is that octopus doing in that tree?” at a show. It’s for the people that don’t understand why you would buy a LEGO set for the parts.
This movie will help the world understand what we AFOL’s have understood since we were kids – that LEGO is not a system to build little models – it is a tool to construct wonderful chaos from parts that are themselves, completely ordinary. On top of that – it sends a very important public service message to parents: Please don’t glue your kid’s LEGO together.
“A Homage to Brickfilms” by Rick
The LEGO Movie was everything I hoped it would be. It’s CG but painstakingly emulating stop-motion. No noodle arms or bendy legs here. There are a ton of brickfilm tricks that were great to see (Emmet brushing his hair with the brush swipe hiding the transition between two hairstyles, long shots being micro-scale builds, arms popping out of their sockets for greater range of motion, etc…). They could have easily cheated with CG but it was completely faithful to the real-life abilities and limitations of LEGO. It was a loving tribute to LEGO and what can be done with them.
I was afraid the movie would be too kiddish, but it turned out to be an entertaining experience as an adult, even for my wife. The advertisements don’t do justice to how well-written, funny, and true-to-LEGOs the movie is. The movie came out at an interesting time just when I’m getting back into LEGOs as an Adult Fan Of LEGOs (AFOL).