For all the positives and negatives that can be said about the four Lego Movies, one thing I've found interesting is the embracing of the meta context of the movies. From the first Lego movie being a reminder to kids and adult fans of Lego that Lego is still a toy, meant to be built up, played with, and then broken up to be rebuilt into something new, the Lego Batman movie making a mockery of the Live Action Batman movies and how depressing DC has gotten lately, the Ninjargo movie... being a Lego version of one of those cheesy, over the top kung fu movies including a giant monster (I'll admit the Ninjargo one is the one I've seen the least of the four), and now the direct sequel to Lego Movie being... a critique on making everything dark and edgy, and a stab at toxic masculinity in the form of showing how siblings don't get along due to how mean an older brother can be using the disguise of the younger sister distorting and brainwashing everything to be more girly... and ironically enough, my younger sister probably hasn't seen this movie, and will likely never see this review because all she knows about my sites is that they exist... anyway...
To give some context to all of that, Lego Movie 2 takes place 5 years after the events of Lego Movie 1. In those 5 years, Bricksberg has been turned into Apocalypseberg, due to the constant invasions from the Sis Star System whenever they make anything that isn't dark, gritty, and from anything other than Mad Max. Which come to think about it, I'm surprised there wasn't some sort of Mad Max cameo. Was that the trade-off for having Pary Moppins, the not Mary Poppins? Anyway, when a Mini Doll named Sweet Mayhem comes and kidnaps Batman, Wyldstyle, Benny, Metalbeard and Unikitty, Emmet sets off to the Sys Star system, running into Rex Dangervest and his crew of Velociraptors, who agrees to help Emmet toughen up, save his friends, and learn how to become a Master Breaker. Meanwhile, Wyldstyle and co are taken to the Queen Watevra Wa'Nabi, a mass of Lego that can shapeshift into anything she wants to be, who plans to host a wedding between herself and Batman in order to stop Ourmomageddon (Grammarly is going to hate this review...), eventually leading to a final battle where the citizens of Apocalypseberg and the Sys Star System have to try and stop Rex, who turns out to be a cold-hearted version of Emmet from the future, in a final battle wrapped up in symbolism and you trying to figure out what the kid was taking when he came up with this plot if this is the kid still playing with Lego or is this going further into the realm of Toy Story where Lego sets actually have the ability to move and to travel back and forth in time.
This movie at times feels like a drug trip because of how insane it should be, yet somehow isn't (until that final battle at least). Any scene of the movie could be described out of context, and unless you've seen the movie, you would not believe it happened just due to the sheer insanity of it. It's kind of amazing as a result. From moments like the Fabuland minifigs being enslaved by the Duplo monsters to sort out all the Lego to be taken to the space temple and used to make the giant wedding cake topped with brickhead versions of Batman and Watevra Wa'Nabi, to a shot where the Minifig Wonder Woman, Mini Doll Wonder Woman, and the Duplo Wonder Woman are all just living in a suburban town, that turns into a city where "brainwashed" raptors are playing the Maracas, and the cast of The Wizzard of Oz are joining in a dance to a song that is gonna get stuck in your head. No really, the song is called "This song is gonna get stuck in your head"... Oh yeah, this movie is also a musical, and the DJ at the start of it is a stand-in for... Edward? I think that's the name of the main Twilight Saga Vampire...?
One of the things that I always love when it comes to these movies is the animation. For as static and limited as Lego is, and with the style inspiration being stop-motion animation like what you'd find on Youtube, everything feels so alive, energetic, which only adds to the over the top feeling to it all. The minifig itself is an interesting thing to animate around as you have no real neck, no elbows, no waist, no knees and no ankles, with the mini-dolls having even less to work with. Yet even with all those limits, they don't look like they're hindered in movement, at least the minifigs do, the dolls do look delightfully stupid as they hop around. I'm not as much of a fan of the songs though. While the movie's score is nice, the songs that are sung are mainly parodies of songs that would be sung in musicals, which while it lends itself to the theme of the movie, they're not memorable, or I'm trying to keep them out of my mind.
Though I may have my personal biases to the message, but I will admit I've been in the brother's position before, numerous times..., I love this movie. For as crazy as it gets, it's still a delight to watch, and something I do recommend. It's a shame that there wasn't as much interest in this movie as any of the others, the theory being that most people got sick of the style, both visually and the story telling. Maybe they could have paced the movie releases out better? I hope Universal does as good of a job with the licence as WB did, though I can't help but feel like something will be missing. WAG is one of only a few animation studios with any major support doing anything unique in animation now, with most animated kids movies sharing a generic style to it, both visually and in writing. Just, please, please Universal, I beg you, don't give the job to Illumination.
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