The Lego Movie: Not So Bad.

So, like millions of other fellow Americans, me and my kids checked out The Lego Movie recently. Verdict? A qualified thumbs up - a thumbs up for sheer laughs and entertainment value, a more measured so so for being a standard Hollywood flick which doesn't get to the level of greatness.

To pick up from my last post, I was incredulous about this film, since any film so blatantly linked to a commercial product just seems like an extended advertisment and/or product placement opportunity.

And there's no doubt there's an aspect of this to The Lego Movie - it's unavoidable. But what's also unavoidable in this flick are a lot of laughs. A surprising amount.

The plot? Well, the plot isn't that clever, novel, or frankly, that interesting (it's the classic tale of a child seeking parental love and affection from a distant parent who has lost the "spirit of play"), but it does propel the story forward in a way that keeps the laughs coming.

And as I said the laughs keep flowing, from start to finish. It's the kind of humor that works for both adults and children alike. A lot of sarcasm and snark between characters that's funny and never mean. There are plenty of pop culture references, but never in a too over the top sort of way which might alienate little kids who don't get the references.

Visually, it's quite stunning. Needless to say everything is made out of 3D cgi'd Legos. I mean everything. Clouds in the sky are made out of Legos. Explosions, smoke and fire are made out of Legos. One sequence set at sea is particularly amazing as waves that are made completely out of Legos rise and fall in sort of a realistic way.

By sort of realistic I mean that none of the movement in the Lego world happens smoothly or realistically. It all happens "lego-ishly." That is, in sort of a herky jerky stop animated style which somehow seems to be correct for a world made entirely of plastic bricks.

This flick resides squarely in the cinematic terrain mapped out in movies like Wreck It Ralph, The Incredibles, and of course, the Toy Story movies. These are all movies with perfectly acceptable and commendable stories which function as premises for a series of engaging, entertaining, and "wow, cool!" visual sequences. It's hard to criticize these movies as they do what they're supposed to do - entertain - and they do it well, but at the same time, I would hold them up against movies like, say, those made by Hayao Miyazaki (Totoro, Kiki's Delivery Service, Spirited Away, Arietty, etc.). where the story and visual world's they take place in mesh together seamlessly in one engrossing experience.

In Miyazaki's movies, the moral of the story isn't treated as sort of an afterthought pasted on to a series of gags - in fact, in some Miyazak movies you'd be hard pressed to find any heavy handed "lessons for kids" at all. They're simply wonderful, rich fantasies that stay with you. Does The Lego Movie get to this level of movie goodness? No. Not even close.

What The Lego Movie provides is about 90 minutes of laughs and diversion. And within 10 minutes of leaving the theater, my oldest turned to me and asked, "can we get some more Legos?" Kind of says it all, doesn't it?