RogerBW's Blog

The Lego Movie 2 28 December 2020

2019, dir. Mike Mitchell/Trisha Gum, Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Banks: IMDb / allmovie

The peace of Brickville is shattered by invaders from Duplo.

Maybe I just wasn't in the right mood for this. If what you want is undemanding entertainment with things that go whoosh and boom… yeah, but surely you'll still notice when they go so far as to hang a lampshade on the shortcomings of the plot?

General Mayhem: This guy was a fierce warrior?

Wyldstyle: Okay, well, technically, I did the warrior stuff, but…

General Mayhem: So you fought, and master built, and kicked butt, and then the hapless male was the leader.

Wyldstyle: He, uh… Well…

Yeah, that's the way it was. And that's the way it will be again: Designated Hero Emmett is handed super cosmic power, and does whatever someone else tells him to do with it. Eventually he listens to someone who's been on the side of good all along, and yay he's a great hero again now so the story can end. Meanwhile his girlfriend is tired of his constant sunny optimism and tells him to grow up a bit, and then when he does that in the most clichéd possible way she changes her mind. Women, huh?

And there's rather more live-action than before, and those characters are even thinner than the plastic ones, especially Maya Rudolph as Fun-Police Mom.

Visually it's great fun, but it's all in service of this desperately bland narrative that's keen to have you cheering for the guy who destroyed the universe because his poor manwy feewings were hurt. (Someone else fixed it.) And the "Catchy Song" naturally fails to be at all catchy, or even memorable; "Not Evil" does a much better job.

I didn't love the first film but it definitely had its moments. This felt to me like retread that fails to understand what was good about the first film, even though it had the same scriptwriters; it's all too reminiscent of Ralph Breaks the Internet.

[Buy this at Amazon] and help support the blog. ["As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases."]

See also:
Ralph Breaks the Internet

Comments on this post are now closed. If you have particular grounds for adding a late comment, comment on a more recent post quoting the URL of this one.

Search
Archive
Tags 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 3d printing action advent of code aeronautics aikakirja anecdote animation anime army astronomy audio audio tech aviation base commerce battletech beer boardgaming book of the week bookmonth chain of command children chris chronicle church of no redeeming virtues cold war comedy computing contemporary cornish smuggler cosmic encounter coup covid-19 crime cthulhu eternal cycling dead of winter doctor who documentary drama driving drone ecchi economics en garde espionage essen 2015 essen 2016 essen 2017 essen 2018 essen 2019 essen 2022 essen 2023 existential risk falklands war fandom fanfic fantasy feminism film firefly first world war flash point flight simulation food garmin drive gazebo genesys geocaching geodata gin gkp gurps gurps 101 gus harpoon historical history horror hugo 2014 hugo 2015 hugo 2016 hugo 2017 hugo 2018 hugo 2019 hugo 2020 hugo 2022 hugo-nebula reread in brief avoid instrumented life javascript julian simpson julie enfield kickstarter kotlin learn to play leaving earth linux liquor lovecraftiana lua mecha men with beards mpd museum music mystery naval noir non-fiction one for the brow opera parody paul temple perl perl weekly challenge photography podcast politics postscript powers prediction privacy project woolsack pyracantha python quantum rail raku ranting raspberry pi reading reading boardgames social real life restaurant reviews romance rpg a day rpgs ruby rust scala science fiction scythe second world war security shipwreck simutrans smartphone south atlantic war squaddies stationery steampunk stuarts suburbia superheroes suspense television the resistance the weekly challenge thirsty meeples thriller tin soldier torg toys trailers travel type 26 type 31 type 45 vietnam war war wargaming weather wives and sweethearts writing about writing x-wing young adult
Special All book reviews, All film reviews
Produced by aikakirja v0.1