Good News: Everything About The Lego Movie 2 Is In Fact Awesome
Starring Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Banks, Will Arnett, Tiffany Haddish, Stephanie Beatriz, Alison Brie, Nick Offerman, Charlie Day, Maya Rudolph, Will Ferrell
Rated PG
Animation, Adventure
Run time: 1 hr, 46 min
Directed by Mike Mitchell
In theaters February 8, 2019
So, fair warning. If you were one of those annoyed by “Everything Is Awesome” when The Lego Movie was the surprise hit of 2014, this sequel will not be for you. The animated film highlights everything that made the first one great and turns it on its head a bit. The structure, the humor and the tone isn’t all too different from the first Lego film, but it seems to take the best parts of both it and the Lego Batman movie and makes sure to incorporate it, successfully avoiding a sophomore slump.
The players are mostly the same: Emmet (Pratt) and Wyldstyle (Banks) are living the best life they can after the terrifying Kragle experience, but things don’t quite look the same. While their friends and allies are all around them, they’ve wound up in a bit of a Mad Max style wasteland, seemingly with no explanation. Suddenly, all of Emmet’s friends are taken away from him and it’s a hero’s quest to try to figure out how to get them all back and save the world as he knows it.
The joy of seeing a movie such as this is the fact that there will be jokes for both kids and adults - hardly any of which overlap. In my showing, there were children cracking up at a star throwing up glitter while the parents chuckled over self-deprecating lines and references to other movies that their kids may not have seen just yet. This installment’s catchy song isn’t quite as impressive as “Everything Is Awesome” since it’s a bit expected at this point, but its use within the movie makes it stand out in a way that sets it apart from just being another earworm.
This is a year of many animated movies (soon enough, we’ll live in a world of live action Lion King and Dumbo, as well as a fourth Toy Story and a third How to Train Your Dragon), and The Lego Movie is a great way to kick it all off. This one may not stick with you as much as its predecessor, but it’s a really fun way to spend almost two hours. You’ll laugh, you’ll nod at the usage of family within it and probably be surprised at some of the turns the plot takes. If that doesn’t sound like a win for a cartoon film, then I don’t know what is.