500 Words or Less Reviews: The LEGO Batman Movie
Last Friday, I took my three boys (and a friend of theirs) to see The LEGO Batman Movie. I realize the movie has been playing in theaters for a few weeks at this point, but I figured it was still worth writing a review for it.
I’ll go ahead and remove all suspense – we enjoyed the film. I would rank it lower than The LEGO Movie but it’s not a substantial drop. Both films are very funny and creative. It has a much better plot than I anticipated based on the previews. Without going into spoiler territory, the plot involves numerous villains, some familiar in the Batman universe and some very unexpected ones from outside of the Batman world. That element of the film was ridiculously creative and entertaining.
The characters are good, with Will Arnett doing a fantastic job giving Batman personality and depth. Mostly personality though. The supporting cast is strong as well. Michael Cera reunites with his Arrested Development costar Arnett, and creates a unique and thoroughly entertaining Richard “Dick” Grayson, aka – Robin. There are too many other characters and actors to mention, but suffice it to say they all do good work. I especially loved Doug Benson as Bane and “Siri” as Batman’s computer, aptly named: ‘puter.
The jokes are almost constant. If the rapid-fire, joke-a-second style of humor is not your thing, you might want to steer clear. The writers clearly go with a quantity over quality philosophy, though I hasten to add that most of the jokes work. The film is so stuffed with jokes, ideas, visual gags, and the like, that I feel like I need to see it at least a few more times before I can truly say I “got” everything. The animation is as good as you would expect. If the “choppy” and “glitchy” animation of The LEGO Movie bothered you, this one will probably give you nightmares. The screen is bursting with color, movement and action. There were times I had trouble keeping track of everything that was happening on screen because so much was going on.
The story had much more heart than I expected as well. A film about a LEGO Batman shouldn’t be able to emotionally engage the audience like this one did. But it did and it’s a much better film for it.
If you enjoyed the first one, you will most likely enjoy this one as well. By the way, the film has a lot of great nods to all the previous Batman incarnations on film and television. And a lot of jokes at their expense as well. Those were well executed and always worth a laugh.
If you have children, there is very little offensive content in the film. There are a few off-color comments made, but most of those will fly right over your kid’s heads.
I highly recommend The LEGO Batman Movie. It’s the most fun I’ve had watching a Batman film in my life.
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In your opinion (or anyone else’s)…do you think seeing this on DVD or Blu-ray will affect the impact of it? Keep in mind I don’t have a great system at home for playing movies to make it feel like the theater.
I’ll have to watch it sometime.
Minor spoiler: the Joker’s face during Batman’s big speech about how little he (the Joker) matters to him (Batman) is about as funny as it gets.
I can’t wait to watch it again.