The LEGO Movie is AMAZING [A+]

The wife and I had date night last night. It was comprised of a nice dinner at a favorite sushi joint of ours, then on to the 7:30 showing of The LEGO Movie. Probably not your typical date night – but it was for us! Thankfully my wife has always supported my LEGO habit, and also loves it too. She was almost as excited for the movie to come out as I was. Almost. I was assuming the theater would be packed with families and children but was pleasantly surprised when we walked in and the majority of the seats were empty. Hopefully this wasn’t indicative of how the movie is doing in the rest of the theaters across the country. It was one of the larger screen theaters so I’d say it was about half full by the time the movie started. There was a small kid, probably five or so who had obviously seen the movie earlier in the day already because he knew most of the words to the songs and even some of the punchlines – but he was so happy and excited and into the movie it just added to the experience.

Suffice to say the movie’s story isn’t brand new – loser dude finds out he is special and can change the fate of the world. It doesn’t hold to story back, however. Instead The LEGO Movie takes the cliche and runs wild – with hilarious results. For the kids, the movie does a great job of showing the positives and negatives of working as a team but also being true to yourself and recognizing you are special in your own way. For the adults accompanying their LEGO crazed kids to the film, you’ll be quite entertained as well. It panders to the kids just enough to make it a kids movie but has tons of little quips and moments over the kid’s heads for the adults.

The movie is phenomenal. Smiles and laughs the whole way through – in hysterics a few times. Hands down the best thing about The LEGO Movie is the universe it takes place in – a land made of LEGO bricks. It opens doors for so many ideas for both story, and comedy. Thankfully the movie had just the right amount of “we’re LEGO and these are our limitations – look, it’s funny!” kind of humor. The animators made it seem like the land of LEGO was as natural as can be. And in that vein I must commend the absolutely mind boggling attention to detail throughout the movie. From watching the individual LEGO bricks and pieces being manipulated to be built with or to act as flowing water it all seemed as perfect as a Pixar movie, but with that extra bit of hilarity because it’s actually LEGO pieces being made to look like ocean spray, instead of just computerized ocean spray.

One bit that cracked me up was watching our main character, Emmet, come to work at his construction site where the blueprints for building were actually the LEGO instruction booklets that come in the box of LEGO models you buy! The fun comes fast, and the jokes sometimes come even faster. Keep your eyes and ears peeled for your favorite sets, and minifigs because chances are they make an appearance. I think UniKitty might be our favorite – the scene where she goes into Mr. Business’ board room meeting was just perfect. Though Will Arnett’s Batman was spot on comedy.

I’ll admit I haven’t done any homework to see how the movie was made, but the computer imagery is not overwhelming, and a good chunk of the film looks like stop-motion filmography, which just adds all the more nostalgic love to it (even if it’s all CGI). Either way, the movie is beautiful to behold.

If you haven’t already, look up the voice cast on IMDB. The movie was chock full of famous folks, and even some really excellent cameos that came straight out of left field adding to the list of surprises.

And there are a lot of surprises. And an ending you won’t see coming!

I give The LEGO Movie an A+, and not just because I’m a doofy LEGO lover, but because as a movie it’s just really, really great.

Don’t miss it.