Reviews: The Lego Movie (Spoilers After the Jump)

The short & sweet of it is that I believe is this definitely a movie to see - 2.5/3 stars!

I've heard a lot of people compare it to Wreck-It-Ralph, but I don't believe that's an accurate comparison. Both are animated, fun for the whole family, and have a feeling of nostalgia, but The Lego Movie has a whole different feel to me overall. I can assure you that it didn't come across like a commercial for Lego's, though it might naturally cause some feelings of your inner child architect to develop. It's super funny, the music is fantastic, and the characters are all likable and well-developed.

Spoilers under the cut.

The actual animation of The Lego Movie is amazing - the use of Lego's for everything is used flawlessly. The characters, I believe, are fairly complex and interesting, and the storytelling is superb.

The reason for my lack of a final .5 is due to the use of live action. I get it, and I don't see them ending the film any other way, but after just seeing the movie once I sort of felt confused by it. It's nice to see a heart warming relationship between a father and son build, especially with the son teaching the father a lesson, but this some contextual information that I'm curious about. What does the father do? Why was he so adamant about the way his buildings were built? Why couldn't he set up a place for his son to create things with him? What is this family dynamic like?

I'm also intrigued by the kid. I was legitimately freaked out when Good Cop/Bad Cop's parents were Superglued and his "Good" side erased. Holy crap that's terrifying. So if that was the kid's interpretation of what his dad does, that's messed up.

In the end, I wish that the inclusion of human interaction with the Lego world remained inside of the animation of the film as some unidentifiable being. However, I don't know if the ending would have been as effective. Speaking of the ending, I also don't really think it was necessary for Wildstyle to leave Batman. I get it - the hero gets the girl, and the reference Batman makes made my husband and I laugh, but Batman was a good guy. He was even calling her by her real name, totally cool. It was just odd.

So really, the lack of a .5 is based on my personal choice. It's definitely a movie I would watch again and be more than excited to show children, but it's not up to "Pixar" standards for me.