The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part (2019)

A SEQUEL THAT DISTANCE ITSELF FROM PRIOR FILM

The Danish brand of Lego has been around for some time now. As these bricks became more popular by time, it has evolved to some even more of a franchise which includes books, movies and video games and everything in between.  This movie tries to reconcile everything there is to acknowledge about these Lego bricks that wasn’t already known to the public. In fact, it refers often to previous events and brings up movies about Batman several times. You can tell already from the beginning that Batman is one of the main characters beside Wildstyle and Emmett.

Prior to this film, there wasn’t much about the interaction to the real world and the children who played with these bricks. Will Farell, did show up by the end of last movie as the villain and has a voice-cameo in this one. He’s barely seen and heard. The main core of the narrative is about closeness and inclusivity which means that the kid from last film has now a younger sister that ruins his fictional world. His baby sister has different bricks and change atmosphere somewhat. His sister’s infant-safe bricks tend to ruin his own fun.

Here, is where it becomes sort of annoying since it repeats multiple times during the movie’s runtime. It tries to have so much more diversity and inclusivity than before which make it sort distanced from other movies where the tone doesn’t fit as it should do. It remarks everything to make it more suitable, but it doesn’t work. As the film evolves the real-world merges on even further to some extent. It makes me even cast off from the movie. It makes me step outside the cinematic world, mostly because they spend almost as much as time in the real world just as the Lego world. Why not just do a film that is all about Lego?  Why is it even necessary to include horrible actors that even can’t fulfil the plot? It’s an underwhelming approach and it ruins the experience of the movie. Compared to the previously movie, this was way more integrated to the storyline in a way that isn’t compatible to the premise. The same approach would be like to include real actors in Toy Story as well. No, redo-it and make it right this time.

The animation of the Lego bricks feels more computer-animated than before. It’s more fluid and cleaner. It worked the last time because it was animated as a stop-motion film, which was the point from the beginning. I’m not a big fan of Chris Pratt as an actor but as Emmett Brickowski, he has a strong presence with his voice that is suitable for this generic character. They do even attempt, a slightly failed one, to develop his character. He is supposedly to toughen up and be more mature for his girlfriend and when he does, she dislikes it. And it turns out that the antagonist is not the evil guy, but the hero and the new guy aka REX is Emmett himself from the future. So, his character development is slightly a waste of time. The movie tries to live up to its predecessor and fails, yet it values the best in people within friendship although the ending could have been written more different. Highlights with this film is Batman and his neglecting his true self despite a predictable plot and over the top story just like all the references of Bruce Willis.

It’s kid-friendly and comical action adventure in the animation – genre and suits well for young and adults.