Review of 'The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part'

2nd film in the 'Lego Movie' series

Lego Movie 2 continues on from the climax of The Lego Movie with the arrival of aliens from the planet of “Duplo”, following on from real-world builder Finn (Jadon Sand) being told by his father (voice of Will Ferrell) that his little sister Bianca (Brooklynn Prince) should now be allowed to play with Legos. And so the battle begins. Five years later sees “Bricksburg” now called “Apocalypseburg”, living on the rubble of the formerly shiny city with the characters all quite depressed except for Emmet Brickowski (voice of Chris Pratt) who maintains his ever-optimistic outlook. When they are visited by General Sweet Mayhem (Stephanie Beatriz) she kidnaps Lucy AKA Wyldstyle (voice of Elizabeth Banks), Batman (voice of Will Arnett), Unikitty (voice of Alison Brie), Benny (Charlie Day), and Metalbeard (voice of Nick Offerman), taking them to the “Systar” system through the door at the top the stairs. There they meet the ever-shape-shifting Queen Watevra Wa'Nabi (voice of Tiffany Haddish) who insists she is not their enemy but merely wants to invite them to wedding between her and…Batman. Emmett is determined to save his friends so builds a spaceship but is saved from disaster in a asteroid belt by Rex Dangervest (also voiced by Chris Pratt) who offers to help Emmett…Will they save Batman from his upcoming nuptuals, perhaps averting “Ourmamageddon” where they will all fall into the “Bin of Storajj”?

This is an interesting follow-up to the original Lego film that is perhaps a tad more serious than it's predecessor. Here we learn that “everything is NOT awesome”, life is sometimes a bit more complicated as the two children who are imagining the story grow older and have to learn to get along. There are still a number of running gags and so much to see it is worth watching several times just to take them in and be sure to watch the absolutely incredible (though overly long) end credits which are an absolute triumph. Not content with just a couple of songs like the first outing here we are treated to quite a number of catch-y pop jingles including “Catchy Song” (“this song is going to get stuck inside your head”), “Everything's Not Awesome”, “Super Cool”, and “Not Evil”, all of which immediately come to mind as soon as I type the title…So, yeah, catchy. It becomes a bit of a in-joke in the film itself as the characters comment on song frequency. These are full-on music/dance numbers…

The animation is, once again, absolutely incredible with the level of detail astounding - You can see the scratches and imperfections of the Lego bricks on the main characters. The imaginative sets look great and really evoke a child-like innocence to them…though it is hard to believe that any “normal” family would be able to afford to amount of Lego on display…

It took me a bit to get into this film particularly since it has been a while since seeing the first but Lego Movie 2 really does up the ante and actually introducing a very real message in a tremendously fun way. Absolutely wonderful. I will say the film is a bit long (see my previous comment about the credits) and drags a bit in the middle, but this is all I can really fault as otherwise it captivates.

Rating: “Nearly perfect, but not quite”

Review Date: 2020-01-26

Directed by: Mike Mitchell

Studio: Warner Bros.

Year: 2019

Length: 107 minutes

Genre: Animation

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3513498/

• The Lego Movie (2014)

• Trolls (2016)