REVIEW – The Lego Movie, Surprsingly One Of The Funniest Films Of The Year

Every once in a while a film will come along that will take you completely by surprise. Your expectation level may be so low or non-existent that when you finally do get around to going to the cinema, it's just a wonderful experience because of how good the film actually is; that's the Lego Movie in pretty much one paragraph. Although the project had been in development since 2008, it went through quite a few production stages and name changes before the voice work got underway. Chris Pratt and Elizabeth Banks were cast in the main roles just at the beginning of 2012 with a couple of trailers being released towards the end of last year and the beginning of this year to create a bit of hype. However, it really wasn't until the initial reviews came out that people began to really begin to take the Lego Movie seriously. The cleverest films for kids work on many levels, entertaining children with good action sequences while still giving enough nods to old classics and good jokes to keep the adults entertained. This is something that the Lego Movie could provide a masterclass for; this might arguably one of the best kids films of the year and certainly the funniest. The Lego Movie story begins with a dramatic face-off; a powerful wizard named Vitruvius attempts to protect the Lego world from an evil villain, Lord Business who wishes to attain a super weapon, the Kragle and destroy the world. Lord Business manages to defeat the wizard but before he disappears, he tells the story of a great prophecy where a "Special" one will find the "Piece of Resistance" and manage to defeat the evil lord. Fast forward a few years later and Emmet Brickowski manages to stumble upon the Piece of Resistance. Unfortunately, he gets there just before what will become his greatest ally, the effortlessly brilliant Wyldstyle. Wyldstyle tells Emmet the prophecy and claims that he is the Special One, the Master Builder who will save the universe. Of course, Emmet has always followed all of the rules but he may need to break a few to fulfill his destiny. The plot for the Lego Movie is just an expertly written device for all the fun however, and that fun exists in vast quantities and then some. The script is arguably one of the funniest to make it to the big screen recently with plenty of brilliant in-jokes, cracking one-liners and character development that a lot of comedies would actually die for; this IS the funniest film of this year. Of course, that might have been a given since the directors behind the film, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, were the team behind 21 Jump Street. On top of that, the cast is just absolutely brilliant, there is no character who is not entertaining or hilarious in some way or another. Chris Pratt of Parks and Recreation fame among others, is brilliant as the lead Emmet, delivering his one-liners expertly and generally just being the clueless one of the bunch. Morgan Freeman as Vitruvius is perfect, Elizabeth Banks as Wyldstyle is adorable but the real star of the entire production is Liam Neeson who plays the Good Cop/Bad Cop so well he may have actually been born to just provide voice-over work for cartoons if we didn't know him as the great "action" star. However, despite all the laughs, and there are a lot of them, the Lego Movie is surprisingly touching as well. Without giving too much away, if you are a Lego fan you will remember all those moments when you were younger and how much fun you had with your imagination. That comes in part from the excellent animation which almost looks like brilliant stop-motion. This is a winner all round, for both adults and children. We can't say enough good things, we may have said enough already. Just go see it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZ_JOBCLF-I