10 / 10
Everyone expected The Lego Movie to be a two-hour advert. I did too. It’s one of the best animated films I’ve ever seen, and one of the funniest films of the decade, and I still don’t quite know how they pulled it off.
Phil Lord and Christopher Miller wrote and directed it, after Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and 21 Jump Street. It came out in February 2014, cost around sixty million dollars and made about four hundred and sixty-eight million. It’s a 10.
The Premise
Emmet is an ordinary construction worker in a Lego city where everybody follows the instructions and loves it. He stumbles onto a prophecy that says he’s the Special, the one who’ll stop Lord Business from gluing the whole world in place. He isn’t special at all, and the rest of the film is about what that means.
The Cast
Chris Pratt voices Emmet, cheerful and hopeless. Elizabeth Banks is Wyldstyle, the rebel who can build anything. Will Arnett’s Batman is so good he got his own film. Will Ferrell is Lord Business, Liam Neeson is Good Cop and Bad Cop, and Morgan Freeman plays Vitruvius, who’s been making the prophecy up as he goes.
The Animation Approach
It’s computer animation made to look like stop-motion with real bricks. The water is Lego pieces, the explosions are Lego pieces, and the characters move with that slight stiffness of a toy being pushed around a table. It looks handmade, and that matters for the ending.
The Third-Act Revelation
Late in the film, we leave the Lego world and find out it’s a basement, and the whole story is a boy playing with his father’s collection. Will Ferrell appears in live action as the dad, who glues his sets together so nobody can touch them. Lord Business is how the boy sees him.
I won’t pretend I saw it coming. It turns a very funny adventure into a story about a father learning to let his son play, and it does it in about five minutes without a false note.
The Everything Is Awesome Song
Tegan and Sara and The Lonely Island recorded it, and it was nominated for the Oscar. It’s a joke about forced cheerfulness, and it’s impossible to get out of your head. The song does to you exactly what it’s mocking.
The Academy Award Snub
It wasn’t even nominated for best animated feature. That remains one of the stranger calls the Academy has made, and the directors took it with good humor.
Craft Note
Craft Note
The Lego Movie hides its real story inside its fake one. The adventure about the Special is a boy’s game, and the moment you learn that, every scene you’ve watched means something new.
A late reveal works when it reframes what the audience already saw. It doesn’t have to add information, only change the meaning of the information they have.
Is The Lego Movie as good as people say?
Better. It’s a 10. Watch it with kids or without them. It’s funny for both, and the ending will get to anyone who’s been either a child or a parent.
Frequently Asked Questions
This film appears on one of my film lists