The Lego Movie Review

"Everything is awesome! Everything is cool when you're part of a team!". It's still stuck in my head from Wednesday...

The Lego Movie is directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, the men behind Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and 21 Jump Street, and tells the story of a guy named Emmet in a world made completely out of Lego. Emmet is a construction worker voiced by Chris Pratt and is an incredibly average Lego figure, trying to fit in. That is until he finds the "Piece of Resistance" and finds himself slap bang in the middle of a prophecy which foretells that he who finds the mysterious piece will bring in an end to the evil plan of Lord Business.

The Lego Movie took me by surprise and is the first great 2014 release. All of the people on the creative team behind this movie really have found something great which could in turn lead to more movies and a very successful franchise, both critically and financially.

The plot itself, as described before, is clichéd beyond belief, and that's why it is so brilliant. Movie goers see films about "prophecies" and "being the chosen one" every single year, The Lego Movie satirically and cleverly pokes fun at all of the clichés of Hollywood movies within it's own story. The film works as a satire as well as a family friendly comedy.

While some of the early jokes did fall unfortunately flat for me, the humour did pick itself up as the story progressed to the point where all of the small children in my movie theatre were silent and the older people were gut-busting. It's an awesome family experience, like most great animations. The longer the film goes on the funnier it gets, leading to some really clever jokes and references that will leave an impression on you.

Chris Pratt does an exceptional job voicing lead character Emmet, who as said before, is literally the most bland and generic person in the world, much like most people who become "the chosen one". He is the most relatable and most interesting character to watch, and that's saying something compared to the rest of the cast, which is fantastic.

It's not just that Morgan Freeman does an excellent job as Vitruvius, a clichéd God/wizard figure, or that Will Ferrell is perfect for the villain Lord Business, or that Liam Neeson is downright hilarious playing good cop/bad cop, it's that the voice work is literally flawless. The voices of these well-known actors fit their characters perfectly and in a lot of ways heightened the jokes.

The animation is amongst the best I have ever seen. It is entirely computer generated but its executed in a way that it looks like stop-motion. This is a masterstroke from the animators as the characters move how Lego people would move, they interact with their environment the way that Lego people would interact with their environment.

There are so many small references to pop culture as well as various ones for other movies. They reference all of the ones you'd expect plus a few that only certain people will understand. I won't spoil any of them for you, go in and discover them for yourself if you haven't already.

If I have a complaint about the film it'd probably be about how much is in it. The references and the surrounding world is awesome, but I do think that they did try to pack in maybe a little too much in terms of the places that they visited. For example, in Wreck-it-Ralph, they had a whole spectrum of arcade worlds to chose from yet they still stayed on the "Sugar Rush" game for the longest time, allowing them to focus on the narrative. I understand that they have lots of things to show off, but a little less wouldn't have gone a miss.

The Lego Movie is a solidly good movie throughout, but becomes a truly great one in the final act. A certain revelation happens which not only changes your perspective on the film as a viewer, but also allows some really heartfelt emotional scenes to happen which work and do have an effect on you.

So it's heartfelt, funny, clever and beautifully animated and is a great movie which you should see:


Rating - A-


1 sentence summary - A great animation which utilises cool characters, satirical writing and emotional moments with great effect!


Thanks for reading,
Matt

Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues Movie Review

It has taken 9 years for the next chapter of the incredible legend of Ron Burgundy to grace our lives. But in 2013, we finally got it. Here's my review for Anchorman 2...

Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues is the sequel to the 2004 comedy Anchorman, which is one of the best comedies of the last 10 years in my opinion. I think the reasons why the original Anchorman is so good is because the comedy in it is so absurdly strange plus has some of the most memorable and fasntastic lines that you can quote on a daily basis.

This next instalment in the legend of Ron Burgundy is directed by Adam McKay and sees most of the stars from the original Anchorman return, including David Koechner, Paul Rudd, Steve Carell and of course Will Ferrell. Anchorman 2 sees the news team, now gone their separate ways, reunite to join a 24 hour news station, which at the time seems like a stupid idea to them, but of course we modern viewers no, it isn't and it works perfectly.

Again this is a movie in which I had a fairly conflicting experience watching it. As comedy sequels go, Anchorman 2 is a great comedy. The first two thirds of the movie follow the Anchorman tradition, with some absolutely golden improvised comedy pieces and some ludicrously quotable dialogue from all the cast. I did like the movie, but trust me when I say the final 30 minutes nearly killed the entire experience for me.

Anchorman 2 has a 2 hour runtime which for a comedy just isn't necessary. If the film editors had chopped off 20 minutes of that stupid final act and resolved it from that I would had enjoyed my experience more than I did.

The final 30 minutes of this movie just isn't Anchorman. Yep, you heard me. The stuff that goes on in this final act is ridiculous, incomprehensible and random FOR AN ANCHORMAN MOVIE. It is just such a mess to me. Some of the scenes don't work at all, they aren't funny. They're completely random and don't work with the tone that the movie set out from the start.

The runtime did bother me but only because the final act was so painful to watch. Honestly, the first 2 acts of this movie were really good. In fact, if they weren't as good as they were I would have seriously disliked this movie more.

Glad I got that off my chest! As a whole I really did like the movie and there are numerous reasons why.

When the comedy hits it hits home. Some times the laughs can be inconsistent but believe me when I say when the comedy gets itself right in Anchorman 2 it is truly histerical.

In all fairness I did actually enjoy the entire plot of the movie. At times in comedies it can be difficult to recollect everything that was going on yet I had no such problem in Anchorman 2. I actually really liked the story of how the news changed from reporting actual stories to showing car chases and stories about little animals. It was no longer about actual news but about TV ratings and I really liked seeing that. The movie had a lot more satire in it than I was first expecting.

Will Ferrell, as you would expect, resumes the character of Ron Burgundy with to perfection. The character of Ron Burgundy is the best character he has ever played and is pretty much at the centre of a lot of the laughs in Anchorman 2. Some of the things that came out of his mouth left me howling with laughter. However it is with another character where the show is completely stolen.

That is Steve Carell's Brick. Every time Brick does something, says something, is on the screen, I was either gently chuckling to myself or crying with laughter struggling to stay on my seat. There was one thing he said in particular, which I won't spoil, where I literally felt tears flowing out of my eyes down my face.

The strength of Anchorman 2 is with it's characters and it can be hysterical when it really hits home. However, a few times where the comedy really failed and a final act which nearly ruined the whole movie for me, I was pleasantly surprised by how good Anchorman 2 was. I was expecting a B-rate pile of crap but I got a good comedy as far as comedy sequels go.

The producers had nine years to come up with a sequel to this and thankfully they did take their time with it. I did like Anchorman 2, my rating to follow:


Rating - B-


1 sentence summary - A comedy sequel that is brilliantly hilarious when the comedy works, but nearly undoes itself through a stupid final third!


Thanks for reading, and stay classy.
Matt