Special: The LEGO Movie Review

We've all played with those brightly coloured bricks in our youth. Whether or not we were building the highest tower we possibly could before it tipped over or if we got a kit and were following the instructions so we could build our own space ship just like the one on the box, we all have (mostly) fond memories of LEGO. It's a highly recognizable name brand, but how would it translate into the movie world? The LEGO movie gave us that answer...

But before we jump into whether the movie worked or not let's delve a little deeper... Contrary to popular opinion this is not the first LEGO movie, they have previously used popular icons in order to make LEGO movies similar to what they did in the video game realm producing hits like "LEGO Star Wars" and "LEGO Batman" which translated to films "LEGO Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Out" and "LEGO Batman: DC Superheroes Unite". Now granted this is the first theatrical attempt which does mean a higher budget and conversely higher stakes. Even higher when you consider that animated fare is generally not released in February. Over the last 4 years we've seen 2 animated films open in February and take home more than 50 million. Last year's "Escape From Planet Earth" (57 million) and 2011's Gnomeo And Juliet (99 million). Normally it's not a bad idea to open up family films apart from others but with Frozen and The Nut Job still holding well nothing is guaranteed even to a major player like LEGO.

So what exactly is The LEGO movie about? Essentially we follow our hero(?) Emmett as he is the chosen one to save the LEGO world from the evil Lord/President Business who plans to use the deadly Kragle to end the world. The only problem is no one believes Emmett to be the chosen one, hell he's not even a master builder and until he meets the attractive Wyldstyle he has always followed President Business' rule as law. He's always been generic and never stood out in a crowd and has to have the burden of stopping this evil mastermind with no one believing in him and his past-life friends never actually liking him or even caring that he's missing. Luckily Emmett isn't alone however, on top of Wyldstyle he receives a helping hand from Batman, Vitruvious, Space Man Benny and many more colourful... Err... Yellow characters.

Now my thoughts are simply an opinion of what I got out of the movie... It can be as varied from person to person as what that person would create given a box of LEGO, but I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. Did I over-hype it? A bit... Maybe. But that didn't take anything away from the film experience in general. It could have very easily rested on the fact that LEGO is a well known name brand and regardless of what they throw on the screen some people would go see it, but instead the creators became fully invested in the project and their hard work showed, from the beautiful animation to the wonderful characters you were fully pulled in. It gets a little convoluted in the third act but as we watch the two scenarios play out side by side we see the film in a new profound way.

In short the LEGO movie is not without flaws, but considering most movies like this simply try to use the film as a lengthy ad to see the merchandise (**cough**Transformers**cough**) The LEGO movie went above and beyond and instead of being an hour and a half of corporate crap with just enough slapstick to allow for 5 years olds to beg their bewildered parents into buying officially licensed merchandise, we got a good solid movie that had a laugh a minute for kids and adults alike that also had more heart than most of what major studios are putting out these days all in a wonderful toy world.

I give The LEGO Movie four bricks out of five.