Basically everything about this movie has has been said in the other reviews, so I'll confine mine to two points: 1) The realization that this movie is so good BECAUSE it can be mistaken as one big LEGO advert was a fascinating one to me. They found one extremely satisfying way to make "the" LEGO movie and tell a beautiful story (watch until the end!). Had they done something like "G.I. Joe", "Battleship" or the likes, they would have failed. 2) The way they're using LEGO bricks for EVERYTHING, including and not limited to fire, water, foam, smoke, explosions, laser beams, LED bargraphs, clouds, force fields, motion blur (!) and more, is just mind-boggling and alone warrants watching the film. Everything is awesome!

It's certainly entertaining up to a point, but the third act doesn't work for me. This film definitely thinks it's cleverer than it actually is. But, you can give it some slack, because the 'Everything is Awesome' song is so catchy.

"The Lego Movie" plays like a loud Sunday morning cartoon, but which just so happens to have the odd reference to an old movie or life situation an adult might be able to cotton on to thrown in for good measure. It is, like so many of those cartoons, an exhausting assault of colour; noise; movement and energy - experiencing it is, indeed, very much like sitting and watching two (or more) frenetic kids playing with a vast array of Lego paraphernalia - something which, it turns out, isn't too far away from what is actually happening anyway... Despite this, there is buried within "The Lego Movie" somewhere the message that there is no substitute for creativity and imagination, which is admirable enough, yet rather ironically the film needed to be reigned in much more for it all to work. The story is also incredibly conventional, in its depiction of heroes; villains; mentors and love interests battling away in a place where a plot to end the world has been hatched. This wasn't something you could say about something like "Toy Story", which decided to eschew some of these tropes; brought to life an alternate universe within our own and also depicted an impressive two-fold character study. Meanwhile, a better example of an animated post-modernist explosion which combined rapid pacing and cultural gentrification might be 2012's "Wreck it Ralph". American actor Chris Pratt voices Emmett, a lowly construction worker living in a city made entirely out of Lego that is run by President Business (Will Ferrell). Business is a crypto-fascist who controls the population with cheesy pop songs and awful television shows. It is, as Neil Postman once wrote, "...in the age of advanced technology, spiritual devastation is more likely to come from an enemy with a smiling face than from one whose countenance exudes suspicion and hate." So slavish to this situation are the inhabitants of Emmett's world that everybody 'greets' the world each morning as one. Emmett is ripped out of his world of subconscious conformity when, one day after work, he spots an intruder on the construction site and, upon confronting them, accidentally winds up deep underground prior to experiencing an out-of-body experience which renders him unconscious. Before he knows anything, he is eye-deep in a plot to do with Business' private Gestapo and the foiling of a prophecy once made by Business' sworn enemy Vitruvius (Morgan Freeman) to do with how, one day, a hero will lead the people to victory over the world of orthodoxy and order. Narrative is perfunctory for most of the film; that is until, perhaps cleverly, it wraps its story into what is REALLY happening beyond the confines of the film's universe. "The Lego Movie", for the most part, is too preoccupied with dragging you head first through a bush - then through another bush into the Wild West; then through another into a realm of knights and dragons before settling on something else entirely, but not before it has taken you to Cloud Cuckoo Land (don't ask) as Emmett and a collection of allies strive to defeat the bad guy. How one reacts to any of this will be dependent on one's tolerance threshold for sheer nonsense, but nonsense that is harmless fun and which does possess half a dozen genuine laughs (Vitruvius' secret knock, anyone?), while being helped along by the fact everything is made of Lego. Had it been something else other than Lego, such as 'regular' characters going about a 'regular' adventure, would anyone have really provided the film with much more than a passing grade? The makers of the film, Christopher Miller & Phil Lord, cover so much ground and flit from one to so many other places that they allow themselves licence to do anything and reference anything from any walk of life or genre. It isn't often you get Shaquille O'Neal joking about how the enemy were "...ready for that(!)" within minutes of Professor Dumbledore arguing with someone over the pronunciation of his name. This is actually fairly lazy, and is best epitomised when they take their characters to the aforementioned Cloud Cuckoo Land, which is, put literally, merely a locale of complete gibberish wherein anything goes. Rooted at the epicentre of the piece is a stiff, egalitarian message to do with how individualism and diversity must triumph over conformity and a refusal to accept amalgamation and hybridity, which is here depicted as pure evil. Again, how one reacts to the film will depend on your own outlooks in life - are pirates and soldiers best suited to battling one another on desert islands and across vast oceans? Or do they all need to come together with the astronauts; cowboys; spaceships; half the cast of "Harry Potter" and Robin Hood to have one giant adventure for any of it to be enjoyable.Despite this, the film occasionally branches off for more admirable messages to do with self-confidence and thinking for oneself - using your imagination and being creative, best demonstrated in Vitruvius' line to Emmett that he must "embrace what is special about you." But more tantalising is the fact there are so many objects from OUR world in the villain's possession. And why do we hear a human boy remark "it's your turn to be the hero..." as Emmett has his early out-of-body experience?By the time the film had ended the first time I saw it (I watched it twice), I had a headache. I was able to appreciate it a little more after the second viewing because I had a better idea of where the chaos was heading, but remain relatively dumb-founded as to why so much praise had been previously heaped on it. Many-a nice thing has been written and said about "The Lego Movie", but it struck me as generally a bit of a mess.

I have always hated the term "Hollywood has run out of ideas". Whenever I hear it, it's usually regarding to a movie clearly based off a property that shouldn't be turned into a movie, particularly ones based on games and toys. Movies based on them (with the exception of "Toy Story" of course) have barely worked with one notable example being the 2012 film "Battleship". So when I first saw the trailer for "The Lego Movie", I rolled my eyes and thought that this movie would never work. And you'll be very surprised when I say that I was proved completely wrong. "The Lego Movie" really surprised me with its clever humor, heartwarming story, memorable characters, and some fantastic animation. Yes, you read that right. "I was actually surprised by The Lego Movie" and I'll explain why.The film takes places in a world made out of Lego filled with many mini figures. In the big city, a normal construction worker named Emmet (Chris Pratt) lives in an average every day normal life following the instructions to a good life. One day though, he accidentally stumbles across the legendary Piece of Resistance, one of the elements of a prophecy that would be used to take down the evil Lord Business (Will Ferrell). He then is thrown into a giant war after he is rescued from custody by Wildstyle (Elizabeth Banks) who he accidentally believes to be the prophecy's chosen one. Traveling through many worlds in the Lego universe, its up to Emmet, Wildstyle, the prophesier Vitruvius (Morgan Freeman), and even Batman (Will Arnett) to defeat Lord Business and his lieutenant Bad Cop (Liam Neeson) before they unleash the ultimate weapon to destroy the world, the Kragle (which is really krazy glue with a worn out label). I can't say anymore, you just have to see it.The strength in this film is definitely the writing. Both Phil Lord and Chris Miller clearly understood the fun of Legos and were able to craft up a world with original characters and comedy that even pokes fun of clichés seen in the past. One notable example is the villain telling his minions to cue his dramatic entrance using smoke and a door slamming open. Writing like this is what makes "The Lego Movie" stand out. The animation is fantastic. What really surprised me about it was the fact that it was actually not stop motion like I initially thought, but computer animation. The film was animated by Animal Logic, the company that crafted the realistic movies like "Happy Feet" and "Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole". The fact that they went from making animals looking very lifelike to simple toys is a pretty big leap and an impressive leap at that. The characters were a whole bunch of fun. Each had at least one to funny line to say, and had at least one unique trait to make them stand out. They also were perfectly cast as well. Chris Pratt brought a real lovable presence to Emmet while Will Arnett cracked me up with his cocky and s egotistical performance as Batman. Will Ferrell even channeled his early performance of "Megamind" in his performance of Lord Business. If I had one problem with the movie and it's pretty much a nitpick is some of the humor was a little off. Most of it hit the mark, but some I just didn't catch or it was funny. However, it's really a nitpick."The Lego Movie" is probably one of the most surprising movies I have seen. With a funny story, fantastic animation and memorable characters, I was left in a very happy mood, something I never thought I would say about "The Lego Movie". I hope that movie studios will take notes on how to make movies based on properties really good, because this movie set the bar very high which can be seen as either a good thing or a bad thing. I think that it's a good thing.