LEGO is, at its core, about play-making. You're given these simple building blocks and with enough imagination you can create vast cityscapes, prehistoric worlds, and battleships on an ocean fighting with sea monsters and... let's say a spaceship -- because sure let's throw a spaceship in there, why not. One of the most fun times I had as a kid was to take characters and items from different sets and mash them together into the same world. I would grow up to do this with my action figures as well when I entered the more mature worlds of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Spider-Man & He-Man (much more sophisticated, you see). But it was the simplicity of the LEGO that kept it a staple in the play box.

These toys had no boundaries. The mixing and matching was the fun... and it felt, somehow, rebellious. They weren't advertised to do this. No one said, "hey go ahead and take the astronauts from your space kit and put them with the cowboys of the saloon set -- that'll be fun!" Some sets even came with instructions on what you were supposed to do. I just looked at what I had, and made the most fun world I could think of to play in. The result was always something silly, different, fun, weird, and all beautifully impermanent... though somehow cohesive.I have just described "The LEGO Movie" to you.If there is one thing I can say about this movie, it's not what you may think it is based on the trailers. It was hilarious, nostalgic but modern, and with a story that actually ends up having some real meat on the bones. There is something truly immersive about the experience and the message in the end may surprise you.

 

Let's just say this right off the bat: I loved it. The directing team of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller ("Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs", "21 Jump Street") were able to strike a tone and a pace that was damn near perfect given the source material. Let me offer a counter-example to better illuminate things: "Transformers." Watching that movie you can feel the lack of respect for the source material. It's obvious that there was no care in paying true homage without throwing its history under the bus. On top of that, there was no message or sense of real style that made it clear the person behind the camera had any idea what made people like these toys in the first place. They're called "Transformers" and all the actual transformations happen in the blink of an eye... a means to an end. That wasn't the point. Did that director even play with these toys at all? Did he not at least observe the things that made them fun for so many and why they became a cultural mainstay? Doesn't matter. He doesn't care.

"The LEGO Movie" is the polar opposite of that. You feel the care that went into it. They cared enough to know or learn what makes LEGO so great to so many people and put it front and center. We are the remix generation and LEGO was right there at the start, priming our brains for what would come. That's what this movie celebrates. We're in the internet age of sharing, collaborating, remixing -- encouraging the unique, weird, and different -- absorbing, challenging, progressing... that's what we are as a young society now.This isn't to say that there's some profound message to be seen in all of this. It's a movie, and it's fun. But at the core of every part of the film there is an underlying sense that Lord & Miller understand why we love LEGO and why they're still relevant. On top of all that, they ultimately build to a more meaningful and touching ending than I was expecting. 

Everyone knows what LEGO looks like. There's not much deviation from that at all. As a matter of fact, even the special effects are (what seems to be at first viewing) entirely made up of LEGO. Is there water coming out of the faucet? No. They are blue singlet pieces. Is that smoke billowing up? No. They are gray pipes pieces... and so on. That's something that constantly impressed me. The inventiveness in the special effects weren't too much more than anything I've seen in fan made LEGO animations but they were applied so wonderfully. Fire was made up of differently shaped fire pieces that were switched around and flickered on and off. Specifically the ocean waves and smoke from explosions really looked slick.

There were a lot of directions that they could have taken in the design, especially in the face, but Lord & Miller kept it simple and true to form. The proportions of the characters are all the same. Sure they have different colors and some accessories, but they had a real challenge to overcome in making the characters uniquely distinguishable to each other and somehow succeeded.

Look at those two images above. They are not different heights. There's no varying widths. The size and shape of the heads, bodies, arms and legs are all identical but not one of them looks like the other. It's things like the hair, "clothing" and accessories that all combine to give variance to the character silhouettes. Of course this can be seen in the actual playsets themselves; LEGO has always been good about that. But in a movie, it's much more difficult to maintain readability between characters especially when the most readily definable features (height, volume, etc) are obscured in identical conformity. With all the camera cuts, moves and especially close ups, keeping each character obviously different must've been a huge challenge and they pulled it off with flying colors. Oh! And colors!Look at any image from the movie and you get some saturated colors, but they're no overpowering. With as much action and adventure in the movie, I found it funny that our main character is actually wearing teal and orange... a modern staple in the action movie color palette. It's down to this level that it feels "The LEGO Movie" has this perfect blend of homage and satire flowing through its veins (think Futurama). I'm looking forward to seeing if I can get my hands on the color script for "The LEGO Movie." 

One more thing I have to mention is the 3D. In most movies I would say it doesn't add much to the experience, but here... it does. There is such great use of depth of field/selective focus that is greatly intensified by the 3D. It really immersed you into the world where you could believe these were actual LEGO sets. These are small pieces. That being said, when they wanted something to look massive -- they succeed. 

There is already a pretty great post on the animation so I'll try not to repeat what is said there. I've already mentioned special effects above so I won't go too much more into that either, other than to say that the way they played with framerate was amazing. They jumped between 1s, 2s and 3s (and I believe I even saw some shots on 4s in there... ocean waves?) which made it all feel that much more visceral.There was an initial backlash (however almost exclusively resigned to animation forums) that this wouldn't be animated with actual LEGO in stop-mo. Of course if they had, special effects would have been outstandingly difficult to do in all LEGO pieces, but I believe that flexibility was of utmost importance... and that was the driving force in deciding to go CGI (that and budget but, as we all know, time=money so they're really one in the same). I've already mentioned "pace" as being a cornerstone of the appeal of this movie -- because it is. So much of how the jokes worked, the progression of the story, and the silliness of the situations succeeded because the pace was so precise. Had this been animated in stop-mo, there would be very little chance to go back and edit a shot for timing if the need arose. I say this to highlight the original point; the way the framerate was played with felt so close to a stop-mo fan-film that it immediately struck a style for itself to watch this movie like you would watch one of those... and ultimately actually made the ending more impactful.

The timing had the wonderful touch of animation director Chris McKay ("Robot Chicken", "Moral Orel") and it showed -- in a good way. It was a perfect choice in director of animation because as "Robot Chicken" feels like something a kid might make in a homemade diorama the animation itself is actually quite sophisticated (mostly in its timing). This is perfect for a project such as "The LEGO Movie" for obvious reasons. But the comparisons even go down to the facial animations of both being essentially 2D images applied to blank-cast heads. Also, I can't wait to get the DVD/Blu-ray so I can step-frame some scenes where I swear I saw some smears but couldn't tell if they were done by stretching out the character models (which would break the physics of the world) or, what I think was actually done, they added in LEGO pieces to stretch out the body parts to make the smear appear (rhyme unintentional) to the audience but stay within their "everything is LEGO" rule-set.

The facial animation is another place I think that "The LEGO Movie" shows its "internet age" colors. Its almost as if they took a cue from Cyanide & Happiness in making the most out of a blank face without going too far into meme-face territory.There's not much in the way of articulation in the actual LEGO figures, but they're able to do a lot with what they have within the "rules" of the designs... and when needed, they play what I like to call the "Bender-game." Bender is the main robot from Futurama, and he has no neck. They had to bend this rule of movement every now and then to get him to emote in certain ways. In the episode "Godfellas" he has to look down to his chest; that would be physically impossible for Bender but it needed to happen so that's what they did (hidden with clever staging). There were a few moments of this in "The LEGO Movie" as well. The arms were able to bend slightly forward and backwards like they had shoulders in certain scenes. Technically this could probably be done, but the arms would be close to popping out.All in all, I though the animation was masterful. That's high praise. Honestly, I didn't think it would be. I just thought "it's a LEGO movie, how much can they actually do with the animation?" Turns out, a lot. Everything was handled so well and it fit with the tone and even the message of the movie (though I won't explain why; you'll know why when you see it). For a movie with a budget of $60mil (less than "Despicable Me 2", praised for it's low-budget approach to the blockbuster), I am absolutely amazed at what was accomplished here. 

• ALL the voice acting!
• Double-door/Dumbledore
• Batman fighting Bad Cop (voiced by Liam Neeson. Batman... Liam Neeson... get it?)
• Superman (voiced by Channing Tatum) being annoyed with Green Lantern (voiced by Jonah Hill)... "21 Jump Street"... get it?
• Batman's song! "Darkness. No parents. Lots of money. Kinda makes it better."
• "Are you ready for this?!" ... "They were ready for that."
• Sound effects made with simple vocalizations like kids do when they play with toys
• Morgan Freeman's amazing scream(s)
• "SPACESHIP!"

 

 

Lord & Miller have been able to take something so formative in our youths and turn it around to reflect where we are now. As a result of their work here, honestly, I feel more connected today with LEGO than I did yesterday... pun intended. We're the generation of mashups & sharing. There's also a "part-of-a-whole" aspect these days that can be a double-edged sword. There are times to follow directions and work as a team and then there are times to be an individual and make something new... the trick is knowing which one to follow, and when. And with all of this, I don't remember the last time I laughed this hard in a movie. I can't say enough good things about it. I'm going to go see it in the theaters again. It's that good.

See it in theaters, see it in 3D, and avoid spoilers

All 5 Onions!! This rating system matters!!

 

What did YOU think?