The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part

Dir: Mike Mitchell

2019

**

I think the fact that Warner Animation Group and Warner Bros. Pictures had confirmed that The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part would be the fourth and final film in The Lego Movie franchise ( following the release of the first film's two spin-offs, The Lego Batman Movie and The Lego Ninjago Movie) is a clear indicator that this was an idea that had run its course. This was a refreshing move considering the films make a ton of money, and it was a rare but welcome bit of integrity in the world of franchise/big business etc. ‘Go out in style’ and ‘Quit while you’re ahead’ are two solid ideas, the only problem here being that the film isn’t very good. In fact, it’s actually rather dull. The magic of the first film was in its charm. It understood how kids played with LEGO and ignored how LEGO wanted kids to play with it. The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part is just a mindless tirade of blurred action scenes and convoluted sub-plots that stumble through ideas of childhood, empathy, regret and much of what people had forgotten about the first film. I found Emmet to be fun, funny and charming in the first film, here he is as annoying as the other characters found him in the original. The songs are dreadfully lethargic and depend largely on the popular tunes of the first film. The contrast between this and the original are much like the difference between The Lego Batman Movie and The Lego Ninjago Movie, that is, one is for everyone and the other is for the brain-dead and children who will literally watch anything. The film grossed over $191 million worldwide against a budget of $99 million, somehow making it a box office failure, something I still don’t quite understand, but those numbers should have been way higher. I think people enjoyed the first but the novelty of such an idea was always going to have a limited shelf-life. I do believe The Lego Ninjago Movie helped kill off the enthusiasm. I think what confused me most about the film is how it tells its audience the basis of the story and then tries to reveal it as a surprise twist at the end. Following the events of the first film, Finn's sister Bianca has been invited to share their father's LEGO collection. In the LEGO universe, this is represented by the arrival of Duplo aliens. Emmet builds the aliens a heart as a token of friendship but one eats it and playfully demands more. Lucy and the Master Builders interprets this as an attack and retaliates, and the ensuing battle destroys Bricksburg. Despite all this, Emmet tries to assure Lucy that "Everything can still be awesome." Five years later, Bianca has taken more of Finn's LEGO creations and other toys to play with. In the LEGO universe, the Duplo army's invasions have turned Bricksburg into the post-apocalyptic wasteland Apocalypseburg, hardening its citizens. However, Emmet remains upbeat and wants to move into a dream home with Lucy, who tells Emmet he needs to adapt to their new harsher world. Emmet himself is also troubled by visions of an impending cataclysm dubbed as "Armamageddon". Soon, a LEGO mini-doll named General Mayhem arrives and proclaims that Queen Watevra Wa'Nabi of the Systar (sister) System wants to marry Apocalypseburg’s leader. Mayhem's forces capture Batman, Lucy, Benny, MetalBeard, and Unikitty after they argued who was the leader. They are taken to the Systar System, where Batman eventually agrees to marry Wa'Nabi, while the others are being tempted to remain, which only Lucy resists. In pursuit, Emmet converts his house into a spaceship and travels through "the Stairgate" – out of the basement – and is saved from an asteroid field by rugged adventurer Rex Dangervest. Emmet begins to toughen up by mimicking Rex, hoping to impress Lucy. Meanwhile Lucy and her friends are taken to a spa and while seeing them being "brainwashed", she escapes to find Emmet. Meanwhile, Rex and Emmet evade Wa'Nabi's forces and find Lucy. Deducing that the wedding is a front for Armamageddon, Emmet devises a rescue plan where Lucy will switch off the music defending the Space Temple where the wedding will take place, and Emmet will destroy the reception cake, encased in a temple, to stop the wedding. As Lucy fights Mayhem, she learns the Systar System never meant to antagonize Apocalypseburg, but merely failed to communicate their desire to coexist in peace – in the real world, Bianca simply wants her older brother Finn to play with her. They also hope that the wedding to bring about peace. She also discovers that Queen Watevra Wa'Nabi's original form is the heart Emmet gave the aliens. Realizing Rex has sinister motives, Lucy tries to stop Emmet and show who she really is, but Emmet doesn’t believe her and destroys the temple. In the real world, Emmet's destruction is carried out by Finn angrily destroying Bianca's LEGO temple wedding cake. Emmet realises his mistake but is seized by Rex, knocking Lucy onto a shelf. Aboard his ship, Rex reveals that he is an embittered version of Emmet from the future; abandoned for years underneath a nearby clothes dryer after crashing in the asteroid field, he became Rex – "Radical Emmet Xtreme" – and built a remote time machine to save Emmet/himself. As revenge for being neglected while the other toys were played with, Rex has tricked his past self into bringing about Armamageddon. When asked what Armamageddon really is, Rex explains what is happening in the real world right now, that is that Bianca and Finn’s mother has halted their bickering and has asked them to put away their LEGO sets, representing Armamageddon (as in just wait until "Our momma gets in"). Rex then throws Emmet under the dryer where he had been abandoned to make him become himself after Emmet refuses to give up on his friends. Everything in the LEGO universe begins to crumble and fall into the dark hole of the Bin of Storajj, represented by Finn and Bianca taking their creations apart and putting them in storage bins. Being unable to accept that this is the end, Lucy urges everyone to sing "Everything's Not Awesome", which Finn hears and then rebuilds the heart for Bianca, thus reviving Wa-Nabi and inadvertently restores the LEGO universe, allowing Lucy to rally the others into escaping from the storage bin in various spacecraft to save Emmet and stop Rex. Emmet and Lucy overpower Rex and sabotage his time machine with a heart bomb. Rex redeems himself as he and his timeline fade from existence when Emmet refuses to be like him, and Emmet and Lucy reconcile. In the real world, Finn and Bianca's mom has a change of heart upon seeing them reconciled and watches them play with their LEGO creations together. The LEGO universe is transformed into a mishmash of the restored Bricksburg and the Systar System called the peaceful "Syspocalypstar". Emmet's dream house is rebuilt and gets an original album of "Everything Is Awesome", revealing Lucy on the album, much to his surprise. Now, as nice as the story is of a young pair of siblings playing nicely together, I can’t help but think that many of the ‘toy’ themes have been covered, and covered better, by the Toy Story films. It’s clever, but far too confused for the heart of the story to be appreciated fully. It gave me a bloody headache. I look forward to not watching another LEGO film and not watching another Chris Pratt film for a while.