If I were to sum up the experience of watching The LEGO Batman Movie, I need to borrow from the earworm theme song of the first The LEGO Movie: Everything is awesome. And it’s a relief to say for this new LEGO-based and DC-inspired film. You really can’t walk into a LEGO movie and not feel good about it. And so I’m taking a different approach from how we usually do reviews here at 2.O and focusing on five of my favorite things about the new film.
Amazing animation
With Director Chris McKay and his team working again with the Australia-based studio Animal Logic for the animation of this film, we get such life-like LEGO pieces making up Gotham City. There have been thousands upon thousands of digital bricks created, personalized, and assembled on computers to bring the movie to life.
As what you’ve seen in The LEGO Movie, we get LEGO pieces that look just like the ones you’d occasionally step on at home. And they’ve been animated in a way that the connections they make on screen would be just like how LEGO pieces connect to each other in real life. And when you see that happen at a pivotal point of the film, it adds a funny yet real feel to the movie.
It’s the DC film we need
We all know the DC Extended Universe is struggling with making great films. And it takes a non-canon, tongue-in-cheek version of the DCEU to tell a good story. The LEGO Batman movie is a subversion of the entire superhero genre. It’s not afraid to make fun of the Dark Knight’s myth but it also shows to us the human side of our favorite vigilante.
It brings together a lot of our favorite DC heroes (the Justice League shows up in an unexpected way) and what Joker says are “the worst villains in history.” The great thing is it isn’t even limited to the DC universe. Have fun seeing some of your favorite iconic baddies here. Marvel isn’t able to go unmentioned in this film either (pay close attention to Batman’s actual password for the Batcave).
There’s also a great mix of deeper jokes and slapstick in this film that there will be something for everyone. Some might require you to explain to the younger kids what they mean, though (the film is rated PG-13 here). But it’s all for the sake of fun. With the characters being played by LEGO minifigures, it really is impossible to take them too seriously. And that’s what’s great about it.
Ready those tissues
Aside from hitting a great stride when it comes to humor, The LEGO Batman Movie is a lot more touching than I expected. With Batman’s dark and brooding nature (and Will Arnett’s excellent portrayal of him), one of the things the film hopes to answer is can Batman just get over himself and be happy?
Batman finds himself in an unnecessary perpetual state of somber introspection. Unlike how people perceive him, Batman/Bruce Wayne lives a self-imposed solitary life, emphasized by the fact that he lives alone on an island with only his favorite romantic comedies and Alfred (Ralph Fiennes) to keep him company. He thinks he’s okay with this kind of life but as his loyal butler/father figure points out, he’s just afraid to find people to love and be attached to them, lest they fall into the same fate his parents did.
It’s a rather serious topic handled with just the right amount of humor and self-reflection from our arrogant yet lovable Dark Knight. It takes a lot of outrageous incidents in Gotham City and problems to befall his newfound family in the film to make Batman realize that he can be our favorite vigilante and still be able to work with others and be attached to them.
Teamwork is another central theme here and what helps make Batman stronger (and more human) in the film is thanks to the likes of Alfred, orphan Dick Grayson a.k.a. Robin (Michael Cera), and Barbara Gordon a.k.a. Batgirl (Rosario Dawson). The movie teaches us it’s important to have people we love by our sides and that we can’t do things alone. And you can’t help but root for all of them at the big fight scene in the end.
So much love for Robin
Playing an antithesis to Batman and my favorite character in the film is the exuberant Robin. While we know him as Batman’s sidekick, he starts out in the film as Bruce Wayne/Batman’s adopted son. And this exuberant boy brought to life by Cera is such a joy to watch in the film.
Unlike Batman who likes to push people away, being an orphan pushes Dick Grayson to try to connect. He wants a family and he hopes Bruce Wayne and Batman (who he thinks at first are two different people) would be the dads he needed. You can’t help but love him and hope for the best when it comes to his developing father and son relationship with Batman, despite the film reminding us how unready Batman is to be a father.
The yang to Batman’s ying
It isn’t just with his loved ones that Batman needs to work things out with. Joker (Zach Galifianakis) wants some validation, too. And Batman, at the start, isn’t ready to give that to him. He even goes as far to say to Joke, “You’re nothing to me. I don’t need you. I don’t need anyone.” It shows off a lot of Batman’s outlook on life as it does resemble a breakup scene in the romcoms Bruce Wayne apparently loves to watch.
As Galifianakis says, we get to see a “whiny and needy” side to the superhero and villain in this film. And it makes for some really funny moments in the movie. It also shows us in Joker’s skewed yet not entirely off-point logic how much these two actually need each other. They are the yin and yang of peacekeeping in Gotham, without the other their careers would be without meaning.
The LEGO Batman Movie is a great film. It’s able to tell a funny yet touching film about some of our favorite characters of all time, and it does that while being able to reach a wide range of audiences.
‘The LEGO Batman Movie’ is brought to us by Warner Bros. and it opens in cinemas on Thursday, February 9.
