Ali Plumb reviews The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part

A multi-coloured brick-shaped fireworks display of nonsense and silliness and wonder

Synopsis:

Five years after the events of the first Lego Movie, Emmet (Chris Pratt), Lucy (Elizabeth Banks), Batman (Will Arnett), Unikitty (Alison Brie), Metalbeard (Nick Offerman), Benny (Charlie Day) and the rest of Bricksburg are living a Mad Max-like existence in their new home, the ramshackle Apocalypseburg. The cause? The invading Duplo armies: fearsome, destructive foes that are attracted to anything that’s shiny and fun. Things go from bad to worse when the mysterious alien General Sweet Mayhem (Stephanie Beatriz) abducts everyone but Emmet and takes them to the bizarre world kingdom of Queen Watevra Wa-Nabi (Tiffany Haddish). Emmet, now alone, joins forces with the boisterous, brave and down-right bizarre Rex Dangervest (also voiced by Chris Pratt) to save all his Lego pals. Sounds bonkers and more than a little bit complicated? Well, it is just that. In a good way!

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Pros:

• The Lego Movie 2 is funny. There are jokes for the kids, jokes for the adults (including one brilliant repeated Hollywood superstar cameo), jokes for us geeks, jokes for everyone. This is a witty film, full of energy and excitement. Like the first movie, it lives to celebrate invention, creativity and eccentricity, singing and dancing and joking around with everything it can lay its hands on: toxic masculinity, spaceships, the medium of cinema itself. The whole tone of the film is one of joy and excitement and childish flights of fancy. It’s fun! You’ll have fun watching it. Which is fun.
• You may not have seen this coming, but The Second Part is full of catchy songs, all written by long-time YouTube hero Jon LaJoie. One is even called ‘Catchy Song’, which has one lyric – “This song is going to get stuck inside your head” – and a pop hook that will never leave your brain, making ‘Everything Is Awesome’ look, honestly, slightly less awesome. The songs are just flat-out funny, clever and fun. Queen Watevra Wa-Nabi (Tiffany Haddish) is a treat, and her duet with Batman has to be seen (and heard) to be believed. But seriously, this film is full of earworms, right into the credits, so you have been warned.
• The new character of Rex Dangervest (also voiced by Chris Pratt) is a delight: an enjoyably bananas parody of hyper masculinity, a cowboy space captain with a legion of cyborg raptors. As you do. But he is just one tiny slice of the amazing insanity this film has in store for you. It’s properly bonkers, a multi-coloured brick-shaped fireworks display of nonsense and silliness and wonder. Make sure you bring a big tub of sweet popcorn with you, you’ll need the energy.

Cons:

• With it being a sequel to a surprise smash-hit original – and The Lego Batman Movie and The Lego Ninjago Movie coming out in the five year gap since we last saw Emmet and company – the freshness factor has decreased. This is perhaps the reason why they cranked the wacky dial all the way up to 11 this time around, but the fact is, it’s not got ‘the shock of the new’ the first one had, and that makes a difference.
• It really is just a little bit too complex for its own good. It’s a pleasingly perfect 90 minutes long, but in that runtime there’s a lot of to-ing and fro-ing going on, hopping in and out of the real world and getting up to much more that I can’t say just now for fear for spoilers. It’s just a tiny smidge too… intricate. Which you may be okay with, but you easily may not.
• There are a few too many characters in this film. There were quite a few in the first one, but there are a significant number of new players in this game, and you slightly miss the relative simplicity of The Lego Batman Movie.

Three word review: Almost as awesome