The Lego Movie

This shouldn't work. It does work. This isn't simply nostalgia escapism, it is truly wonderful filmmaking at hand. Captures the imagination of lego to the full extent and try not to blink too often as you'll probably miss something utterly gorgeous. Every tongue in cheek line and lego block cameo is just home run after home run. Bravo.

The blocks are all in perfect place. The trailer made it seem like a direct-to-video movie, but it ends up being so much more than that. The “chosen one” plot has been told time and time again, but everything else is done so well that it really doesn’t matter. The animation is stunning, the characters are all likable or hilarious, and the humor and pacing came together perfectly. You’d have to be a little dead inside if you walked away from this saying none of it was good. A favorite of mine.

As cliched as it is, eeeeeverything is awesooooome in this movie! I'm very impressed not only with the quality of the animation (how did this not take at least a decade to make?), but with the quality of the story. I love when kids movies add adult subtext to their story; commentaries on Capitalism and freedom, some pretty high-level stuff coming from a nostalgia-driven kids movie. But that's the beauty -- Lego Movie is about so much more than just nostalgia. This is expert animated filmmaking.

Thanks to intelligent and creative filmmakers, a hilarious script, fantastic voice work, and unique and gorgeous animation, The Lego Movie is a movie that you should not miss. Everything that it needed to do, it does wonderfully, and it even manages to avoid feeling like a commercial for its title product -- even though it will have that exact effect, especially on younger members of the audience. There are many jokes, surprises, and thrills to be had.

Miller and Lord have mined the very idea of Lego right down to its most basic function and find in the toy a conflict on not only how to play with Legos, but how to live one's life in the same consumer-driven culture that would bring us a movie about Lego. Because these are the guys who made Clone High, every frame is packed with throwaway gags -- the attentive viewer will find new reasons to laugh every time. A potent and affecting emotional climax as well. Kids will love it. Adults should too.