The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part
Given how much I loved the original “LEGO Movie” in 2014, and thoroughly enjoyed the “LEGO Batman” movie two years ago, it’s more than a little surprising that it took me over a month to get to this sequel. Part of it is life, but part of it was being unsure how the sequel would exactly work given the big reveal at the end of the first film. Christopher Miller and Phil Lord are nothing if not inventive, however, and “The Second Part,” directed by Mike Mitchell, achieves a lot of the same charm, energy and imagination of the first film, even to the point of getting me to tear up. Impressive gentlemen. Most impressive.
The film takes place five years after the first “LEGO Movie,” and it telegraphs what to expect from it early on before catching up with Emmet (Chris Pratt), Lucy (Elizabeth Banks), Batman (Will Arnett) and the rest of the master builders as they have been under siege from the forces of Queen Watevra Wa’Nabi (Tiffany Haddish), and the world that was once awesome looks like a LEGO version of “Mad Max Fury Road” and “Blade Runner 2049.” The trailers have already given up that Lucy, Batman, et al are all taken by Wa’Nabi (say the whole thing aloud to figure out the game), and it’s up to Emmet, with the help of a rogue space captain called Rex Dangervest (also Pratt) to get them out of the Sistar system. If you remember the twist in the first one, you can probably figure out how this is going to play out. What you might be shocked by, however, is how much it affects you regardless.
I have yet to see “The LEGO Ninjago Movie,” but it’s honestly been the one I’ve been least interested in, because that one is all about selling a specific line of LEGOs. The great thing about the flagship films in this franchise is how they get at the creativity of imagination and playing that children can have when they’re young. That was definitely what played out by the time the first film ended; this one is about whether we are able to invite someone into that world we imagine for ourselves, which again, you can kind of see coming by the time it happens in the movie. If the film wasn’t awash in delightful entertainment, I probably would have been bored senseless. But the characters are just as wonderful as we see them subvert their typical characterizations; the animation is as fresh and creative as it was in the first film; and the music by Mark Mothersbaugh continues to breathe infectious feelings while we get weird earworms stuck in our heads. Don’t let anyone tell you that “Everything is Not Awesome” with “The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part”; and if they do, they may have simply forgotten the ideas that grew out of this franchise in the five years since it started.
