Everyone loves the first “LEGO Movie” for its creative humor and imagination, while incorporating a strong, relatable message about creating your own imagination without any boundaries possible.
I remember myself of course 5 years ago when the first film came out not just admiring the film, but also being obsessed with the LEGO sets which obviously promoted the film. I pretty have much every one of them still intact down in my basement.
After an amazing, creative entry with “The LEGO Batman Movie” and a decent, humorous showcase with “The LEGO Ninjago Movie”, I was eagerly awaiting to see who was directing the sequel to the critically-praised hit.
Unfortunately, it was not Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (who did the first one and still are contributing to the “Second Part”). It had to be the director of “Trolls” and “Sky High” (Mike Mitchell). I felt very bummed because he has an average track record for movies.
After lying to myself that it isn’t going to be as funny as the first (or even “LEGO Batman”), “The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part” is worth the very positive reviews it received on Rotten Tomatoes and, although not as good as the original, still has the sarcastic humor, creative soul and emotion of its predecessor.
The film continues after the first film where the “Duplo” monsters are here to destroy Bricksburg. Therefore, they destroy near every last brick (no pun intended) in the town and now turns into a nasty, apocalyptic wasteland.
Our main hero from the first film, Emmet, then tells Lucy a dream where he wants to build a nice yellow house in the wasteland, but of course, Lucy is troubled by dreams of an upcoming “Armamageddon”.
The Duplo army leader General Sweet Mayhem makes an announcement towards Emmet and the Bricksburg population that she will be kidnapping Batman, her girlfriend Lucy, Unikitty, MetalBeard, and Benny the Astronaut to the Systar System. It would be where Queen Watevra Wa’Nabi is proclaiming to marry Batman in an audacious, eventful wedding.
Meanwhile, Emmet by himself is without his friends and decides to convert his dream house into a spaceship. While bombarding too far in the galaxy, a Chris Pratt parody-driven character (of his characters in “The Magnificent Seven”, “Jurassic World”, and “Guardians of the Galaxy”), Rex Dangervest, ultimately saves him from the space mayhem.
While learning Rex’s mannerisms, Emmet motivates him to not just save his friends, but to also stop the wedding as well as destroying the reception cake once and for all.
The first film from Phil Lord and Christopher Miller is a major, groundbreaking achievement in animation when it comes to storytelling and innovative, sarcastic humor. When coming out of the theater, I was not thinking of that in my head. It still is considered in my eyes a great follow-up to the original providing so much creative humor and heart that gets into the audience.
Mike Mitchell of “Trolls” provides such a gleefully fun and creative direction to this film borrowing several elements from what Lord and Miller incorporated into the first that at some times, it felt like it was directed by them.
The voice-acting performances are still there with Chris Pratt doing his all playing two characters, whom are Emmet and Rex Dangervest. The humor delivery they both have together goes rapid back-and-forth.
Even the dinosaurs Rex adopts made me laugh out hard.
Batman (played by Will Arnett) is still narcissistic and humorous as usual when questioning if there is a song coming on (since it is part musical) and jokingly referencing his motion picture film history like he did in “The LEGO Batman Movie”.
Lucy (known in the first film as Wildstyle) still has his womanly attitudes abide and Benny is still obsessed with spaceships. That does mean that UniKitty changes into a giant robotic version of herself when something action-packed happens.
There are very new characters added to the film including a good-enough voice performance by Tiffany Haddish as Queen Watevra Wa’Nabi, a queen who can morph into different character-like shapes, an accidental slipping banana that always fails to walk, and an ice cream cone voiced by Britain Richard Ayoade.
The soundtrack is very fututre-esque where it treats itself at times like a musical with songs including “Catchy Song”. It did get stuck inside my head, but not as memorable as “Everything is Awesome” where it became a landmark aspect in the first film. My favorite song in the film would be “Super Cool” from Beck, Becky G and The Lonely Island because it basically pokes fun at the end credits.
The best aspect without question is Phil Lord and Christopher Miller’s screenplay for the film. The stride and pace of it works so well with the balance of humor and emotion like the first although not as good as that installment.
They incorporate very crazy-sharp twists and turns during the very end (with a fantastic live-action montage lead by Maya Rudolph and “The Florida Project’s” Brooklynn Prince) including one involving Rex and Emmett. There are also messages that will be relatable to kids and even adults too that I won’t give away.
“The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part” is once again another great ADD-inducing adventure involving so much great humor and heart like the first film that could have been turned to dirty dust from 20-year old LEGO sets. I guess everything is awesome as predicted.
Grade: 8.5/10
