Earlier this month I went with my daughter
to the cinema to see Warner Brothers’ American/Australian/Danish “The Lego
Movie”. We had both been very excited about seeing it as Lego is one of the
most amazing and international acclaimed Danish inventions and furthermore the
movie got really good reviews.
I must admit, that when first I learned
that the name of the main character was Emmet, I was disappointed. Why would
anyone making a movie about Danish toys give the main character a name that is very
uncommon in Danish? Obviously, the directors/screen writers Phil Lord and
Christopher Miller would, but I just thought it would have been nice with an
internationally common name like John or Tom or Michael, which are common in
Denmark too, instead of the very English Emmet. I must admit that seeing the
movie, I was equally disappointed. Sure, Emmet’s orange and white security vest
looks a bit like two Danish red and white flags, but the rest of the movie is
very, very American.
The Lego Movie opens with a scene showing the
wizard Vitruvius (Morgan Freeman) attempting to protect a super weapon called
the "Kragle" from the evil Lord Business (Will Ferrell). He fails to
do so, but prophesies that a person called "the Special" will find
the Piece of Resistance capable of stopping the Kragle.
8½ years later, we meet the Lego
construction worker Emmett (Chris Pratt) who is so ordinary that people don’t
notice him. He is content in his routine life, though, where he sticks to the
manual, listening to the same song as everyone else, watching the same TV-show
as everyone else and doing exactly what he is supposed to do.
By accident Emmet finds the Piece of Resistance
and meets the Master Builder Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks), the two eventually
teaming up with Vitruvius, Batman (Will Arnett), Metalbeard (Nick Offerman),
UniKitty (Allison Brie), and the 1980es something space guy Benny (Charlie Day)
to battle against Lord Business and his henchman Bad Cop/Good Cop (Liam Neeson).
It is impressive how everything in this
movie is made to look like it is made of Lego (which of course it isn’t as it
is a CGI movie). Especially explosions and water look awesome when made of
make-believe Lego. And it’s funny that Shaquille O'Neal is the voice of Shaq
and that Billy Dee Williams and Anthony Daniels are Lando Calrissian and C-3PO.
It’s entertaining that Batman is in the movie along with Superman, Wonder
Woman, Green Lantern, Milhouse, Dumbledore, Gandalf, Abraham Lincoln, William
Shakespeare and a lot of other superheroes, made-up characters and real life
heroes. And the plot twists and turns several times, but it’s never really
funny or exciting.
The play of words are too few and too lame
to be funny, the different Lego universes aren’t used or seen much and the
contradicting theme of “everyone’s a hero” and “together we are strong” has
been used too many times before to be interesting. Maybe I could live with
that, but moving the story into the real world with real actors ruined it for
me. Suddenly it was no longer an action packed animated fantasy movie, but a
very sappy and very American story about a father/son relationship. Not a
clever move, the only thing good about it being Finn, the name of the son
(Jadon Sand), as Finn at least is a Danish name!
I have to say that of the audience, the
very young children seemed to enjoy at least two things about the movie: the
coolness of Batman and the anger of UniKitty. As for my daughter, she found the
movie extremely boring and a bit of a disappointment and I’m afraid I agree
with her. Even the soundtrack rap song “Everything Is Awesome” (performed by
Tegan and Sara featuring The lonely Island), which we thought we would be
singing for a long, long time after leaving the theatre, we both forgot within
an hour.
Three out of five stars: ***
