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.

Review: Percy Jackson: Sea Of Monsters

I'm starting this review off with a very important note that you should all keep in mind while reading this review, I'm extremely biased. Now that we got that little piece of information out of the way, let's get on with the review...

I FUCKING LOVE PERCY JACKSON!!!! I started reading the books around the time the first one was coming into theatres although I didn't have it done when it was in theatres so I skipped it, or at least until it was on DVD. When I did finally watch it I did enjoy the movie very much, despite the fact that they changed so much for the movie, and I don't mean subtle little differences that Harry Potter fans whine about "That's not how Harry met so and so" and "This part was before that part" in the first one they changed the villain altogether!! The next paragraph is going to contain spoilers from the first movie and the first book so if you don't want to read them skip it.

In the first book the fact that Luke was setting up Percy to be killed was a big cliffhanger at the end of the book when he tries to kill him with a scorpion in the battle arena it is only then revealed that Luke had been using Ares (God of war who Percy actually battles once he leaves the underworld. Now I know it's easy to make Hades the villain since general movie going crowds already know Hades is bad from everything else so they don't have to know anything more about the villain. But my favourite parts of the first book is when Percy goes to talk to Hades and Hades says that he doesn't want the Olympians to fight that he was sent down here as punishment and he would be upset if war broke out among his siblings. It makes you feel BAD for Hades, a feeling that most Greek mythology books does not, so rather than having a big reveal at the end of movie 1, which could possible increase interest in movie 2 since the audience would feel betrayed by Luke just as Percy and friends were since we would know him as a good guy instead of seeing him in about 10 minutes of screen time, half of which he is complaining about his dad so we don't actually end up liking him before we are told he's bad.

Okay spoilers done, but as I am, I'm able to separate books from movies. I was able to enjoy both, do I think the movie could have been better? Of course. But that didn't change the fact it was still a really good film. The 2nd movie did a complete 180 and was much more faithful to the book only changing a handful of things, which really weren't a big deal to me anyways.

In the spoiler section I talked about how the first film failed to cause excitement for future movies, the sea of monsters was an interesting stand alone story that you don't really need any background on to enjoy. All the while planting the seeds to show what's in store for future and more promising arcs.

Although Percy and the gang will undoubtedly be written off, unfairly might I add, as tween and teen centric dumb fun, but really in a summer that has been bogged down by dark and bad films. Percy breathes a breath of fresh air into movie theatres. Logan Lerman continues to lead the cast by being a believable Percy with off the chart combat skills but an equal amount of uncertainty about himself in his future. The production values are much better than the first with a better special effects to boot, although that's to be expected since they spend most of the first film in the United States whereas number 2 is heavily placed in the Sea of Monsters. Also I was surprised by the 3D... I was expecting no real 3D just put in 3D to have extra money to put towards the film, but it was actually kinda worth it and the only reason I say "kinda" is because I really don't think any 3D is worth the 3$ surcharge.

I give Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters 4 out of 5 demigods.