Last night, I rewatched The Lego Movie. It had been a few years since I last saw it, so I forgot how good and insightful it is. That may sound like a strange thing to say about a movie based on small plastic bricks, but I found a lot of good stuff in it. As usual, this review contains spoilers, so I recommend skipping it if you haven’t already seen the movie.
Emmet Brickowski (played by Chris Pratt) is a construction worker who finds great joy in being just like everyone else, right down to watching the same TV show, singing the same song repeatedly, buying the same overpriced drinks, and always following his instructions. At the end of one of his shifts, he finds “the piece of resistance”, which is supposed to be able to stop President Business (played by Will Ferrell) and his plan to permanently freeze everyone in place. Emmet then teams up with a group of master builders (who can create nearly everything out of the Lego bricks around them) who believe him to be “the special” that Vitruvius (played by Morgan Freeman) foresaw in a prophecy he made up. Incredible visuals and sharp comedy accompany them on their journey to save the day.
The Lego Movie makes use of a lot of clever comedy in examining various aspects of modern life that most people take for granted. Some of those issues include blindly following someone else’s “rules”, missing out on important matters by watching mindless TV, trying to fit in with everyone else rather than finding one’s own unique identity, and subverting creativity in favor of “order”. In short, the movie points out the value in retaining one’s individuality instead of just being another face in the crowd. This is quite fitting for a movie based on Lego as the toy allows for a great deal of creativity, originality, and imagination. Although I didn’t find The Lego Movie to be among the funniest comedies I’ve seen, I still enjoy it for its message, visuals, and solid performances. If you haven’t seen this awesome movie, do yourself a favor and check it out.