Coastal View News
In the past few years—since the release of the first “Lego
Movie”—a lot of people have come to realize, or at least feel, that everything’s
not awesome. Like, in the world—not everything’s
awesome. Nor is everything cool, even when you’re part of a team.
And if not everything is awesome in the real world, well
then, I suppose it may not be awesome in the Lego world either. And, indeed, in
“The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part,” it’s not. Just as the broader state of the
world can be a major buzz kill, so too untoward environmental dynamics can rain
on Finn’s (Jadon Sand) Lego parade.
The destabilizing baby-in-chief in Finn’s world is his
sister. She wants to play too. But in her own way. And the pre-existing tenants
of their local Lego world—which, recall, include Emmet (Christ Pratt),
Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks), Batman (Will Arnett), MetalBeard (Nick Offerman),
Benny (Charlie Day), and so many others—are rightly terrified by this
development.
Emmett, ever the optimist, tries to reach out to the new sister-made
Lego Duplo creations. But things don’t go well. And before you know it,
Bricksburg is Icksburg—a dystopian “heck” scape ala Mad Max.
Some of the more heroic Lego characters—particularly a
bunch of the literal superheroes—head out to baby sister’s Lego world—i.e., the
“Systar System”—to fight back, but when they don’t return, those who were left
behind begin to lose hope.
Except, Emmet, that is. He’s still listening to his
uplifting pop music, ordering super sugary coffee from a run-down coffee shack,
waiving hi to all these mean biker dudes and terrifying robots, and, well, I
guess making the best of it all.
Until, that is, his best friends get taken away by
General Sweet Mayhem (Stephanie Beatriz), the general of the Duplo army. It’s
strange, actually. General Mayhem comes along to say that their leader—Queen Wa’Nabi
(Tiffany Haddish)—wants to marry the leader of Bricksburg (now Apocalypseburg),
whoever that is.
Batman thinks it’s him, but then so do a bunch of other
people, so General Mayhem takes them all away. Emmet is clearly not leadership
material, so he gets left behind.
But that’s when Emmet finally sounds the alarm, gets
pissed, kicks it into gear, and pursues the enemy. With the help of a familiar
sounding bad boy, Rex Dangervest (Chris Pratt), Emmet makes it to the Systar
System where his friends are being held.
Well but now they’re not actually being held. It’s more just
where they live now. They seem happy and content. Almost too content. And Queen
Wa’Nabi is nice, I suppose, but in a creepy I-may-actually-dismember-you sort
of way.
But Emmet and Rex don’t buy it. Neither does Wyldstyle. They
think everyone has been brainwashed. So it is up to them—or at least they think
it is up to them—to shake everyone back to reality, or what they think is reality.
While watching “The Lego Movie 2” I laughed just about as
much as I expected to laugh. Pretty close. Which, first and foremost, is praise
for the movie, because I expected to laugh a lot. I liked “The Lego Movie” and
really liked “The Lego Batman Movie”. And this sequel is cut from the same witty
cloth.
Like the previous movies, “The Lego Movie 2” is funny,
irreverent, fast-paced, and quirky in all the right ways. Kids will love all
the fast action, exploding Legos, and slapstick humor, while parents will crack
up at sharp puns and cultural references. So, yeah, this is a Lego movie. And
that’s a good thing.
But, with that said, I didn’t laugh more than I was expecting. And I liked “The Lego Batman Movie” better.
Also, while the moral in “The Lego Movie 2” is both well executed and timely—and
I really do appreciate its addressing the not
awesomeness in life—it won’t exactly blow you away with its profundity.
So “The Lego Movie 2” is, you know, good. Not great. But
good.
