“Everything is Awesome!!! Everything is cool when you’re part of a team!!!”

Hello :-)

I’ve gotten into the habit of taking myself to the cinemas on Valentine’s Day, not for a date or anything, just because it coincides with stuff I want to see. This year, just in time for Valentine’s day and the half term holidays we see the release of ‘The Lego Movie’ which I went to see on 14th :-)

We begin in Bricksburg. Our hero, construction worker Emmet Brickowski (Chris Pratt) happily goes about his little yellow life doing the same thing day in, day out. One day, on a building site, Emmet comes across Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks) and falls into her quest to discover ‘The Special’, find ‘The Piece of Resistance’ and put a stop to the evil Lord Business’s (Will Ferrell) plan to control his subjects.

I’m really annoyed.

‘The Lego Movie’ is so so so good that I feel as if everything that follows in 2014 is going to be slightly anticlimactic. If there’s anything as bright, clever, warm, inventive and as god damn funny as ‘The Lego Movie’ between now and the end of December it’ll have been a bloody brilliant year.

Phil Lord and Chris Miller have both directed and written the screenplay for ‘The Lego Movie’ so I’m heaping praise on them both… actually… I have a metaphorical dumper truck full of praise and I’m backing it up to tip it’s contents over their heads. The script is an absolute gem. It’s clever and does the same thing as Lord and Miller’s ‘Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs’ films by being both adult and child friendly. When you strip it down, the reason ‘The Lego Movie’ is so good is because it’s jam packed with gags and that hit the mark over and over again. We say that and it sounds so simple but as we’ve seen countless times in the past, consistently funny jokes aren’t an easy thing to get right.

The warmth of the film comes from the plethora of totally lovable characters.

There’s smorgasboard of supporting talent from Alison Brie as the diabetes-inducingly-sweet Unikitty, Channing Tatum as Superman, Jonah Hill as the Supes-Fanboying Green Lantern, Cobie Smulders as Wonder Woman and Morgan Freeman as the hilarious Obi Wan-esque mentor Vitruvius.

Having Liam Neeson as Bad Cop/Good Cop, a police officer with a split personality is a stroke of genius. Sending up Neeson’s recent spate of tough guy roles, Bad Cop/Good Cop is a bit like an infinitely nicer Gollum. I particularly like where Bad Cop goes to smash up a chair but because it’s made of a moulded piece of plastic, it just bounces around the room.

Threatening to steal the movie in every scene in which he appears is Will Arnett’s Batman. Lord and Miller have made him completely oblivious to how he appears to the outside word and it’s brilliantly funny. Also Batman’s foray into emo song writing had me in stitches.
The glue that binds this whole thing together is Emmet. Chris Pratt’s character is adorable. A sweet everyman who is thrust into the midst of an extraordinary situation.

The animation is CGI but done in such a way as to make it look like stop motion which endeared it to me immediately. It’s a visual mardi gras; the colours have all been turned up to 11 and there’s so much to look at you’re constantly spotting things that make you smile. For me, it’s the attention to detail that makes it so wonderful. Everything is Lego. When there’s an explosion the smoke cloud is Lego, when something is on fire the flames are Lego, when someone turns on the shower the water droplets and soap bubbles are Lego.
There is such affection for the Lego product here, which goes some of the way to explaining why ‘The Lego Movie’ never feels corporate. There is an element of advertising, this is a film based on a child’s toy after all, but it never feels like you’re being sold stuff. You forget all of that until you emerge from the cinema, check when Toys R Us closes and hot foot it over there to do a late-night trolley dash down the Lego aisle.

Tonally it really reminded me of Aardman’s ‘The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists’ which is a lofty, but totally deserved, comparison. In the same way that ‘The Pirates!...’ is a joyous sensory assault ‘the Lego Movie’ feels like someone’s dropped a Berocca in a can of Redbull and made you neck the lot. That a film can capture a sense of chaotic fun whilst maintaining a simple, strong narrative and delivering a surprising third act emotional punch is somewhat remarkable.

When I say I laughed from start to finish I’m not exaggerating. I was hand flapping, doubled over in my seat laughing. For me ‘The Lego Movie’ is instant top 10 favourite film territory. Hysterically funny and unexpectedly moving ‘The Lego Movie’ is one to be enjoyed again and again.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a Lego Hogwarts to build.

Oh... and it has an epic blooper reel :-)

Now let’s have some

Reasons to be Cheerful :-)

1. MASSIVE ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ Trailer drop! So on Tuesday morning we had a 19 second teaser trailer and a few photos and then later on the same day we had the super shiny sexy trailer, a pretty foxy poster and some nice character introduction videos. I love love LOVE how this looks :-) Bright, shiny and a level of bonkers befitting of a film where a talking Racoon is a central character. Can’t wait for August!!!

2. Tom Hardy has joined Cillian Murphy and the rather wonderful cast of ‘Peaky Blinders’. I am so very excited about the prospect of these two working together again. I loved the first series and now the wonderful Mr Hardy is on board series 2 looks to be just as good… if not better!

That’s all of it!

Goodbye till next time :-)

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