The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part (2019) Reviews

• Had great ideas but couldn't hold itself together

  Thekeybaldemasterrises2019-02-06

  I guess I'm that one person who didn't like this movie because it has an insanely high score on Rotten Tomaotes. I loved the first movie and actually quite enjoyed Lego Batman. Didn't see Ninjago but I was still excited for the Lego Movie sequel. I attended an early screening a couple weeks ago and I'm sad to say I was pretty let down by it. I was actually shocked that Phil Lord and Chris Miller we're still heavily involved in the script because I had vibes that a writer's room made this movie, but nope they wrote the screenplay. Don't get me wrong, the script has great ideas about unity and friendship in dark times like we live in right now, but the story just wasn't as smooth as it could've been leading into that big theme of the film. It might be because I got older since the last film but the jokes fell a little flat for me and the action scenes were just no where near as memorable. There's an ongoing joke between Batman and the supposed villain who wants to marry him and she sings songs to persuade the main characters. But the song just isn't funny and it's really bizarre. I would've been more forgiving of the jokes if the story had been more interesting too but it lost steam for me pretty quickly. The big twists were either predictable or not as impactful because of the surprise factor the first film had. I really don't know what went wrong here. I just wasn't moved by any of it like I was with the first film and even Lego Batman to a certain extent. It seems like WB has aimed this movie for even younger audiences than before which is fine that's what the movie is made for, but when the first one was so genius it's just hard to like this movie. I personally enjoyed How to Train Your Dragon 3 more than this and highly reccomend that for your next animated film instead of the Lego Movie 2. It's not a terrible film, but it severely lacks the humor and surprise factor the first film did so well. 6/10.

• Everything (For The Most Part) Is Awesome, Again

  EvanAcreeFilm2019-02-06

  The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part-written by this decade's legit greatest animated movie screenwriters, Chris Miller and Phil Lord (who make most of Disney's recent attributes seem like child's play),-comes off as a passably tolerable, vibrantly decorated childrens' feature that later on blossoms itself into a flamingly witty childrens' AND adults' feature that's bound to electrify the little ones while maybe even stuffing the parents with un-toughening amounts of misty-eyed, raw emotion. So a little background on my experience with the first one. Most people seem to have deemed it as "one of the best animated movies of the decade" back in 2014. I'm not messing around though when I say that I wholeheartedly think that The LEGO Movie IS the best animated movie of the decade! To this day, I view it as the most unexpectedly "awesome" movie I've ever witnessed in my entire life. So as prophesied, I was pleading for this sequel to live up to its predecessor-despite disliking the watery trailers/teaser trailers/teaser teaser trailers/whatever configuration of a trailer I left out-and not bail-out like Hollywood's most popular, trivial, hop-scotch prequel/sequel/spinoff cash grabs. For the first half of this movie, I can't lie, I was getting a tad concerned that this movie was going to suffer from major sequelitis due to its awfully turbo, too-meta-for-it's-own-good formula-that might I add, has become quite established already since we've seen this recipe fabricated more productively in three other LEGO movies. This mundane scheme appeared to be leading this movie off into oblivion. But, once the film gets kicking, it GETS kicking. The nucleus of this film starts to reveal itself as an emulate of the original LEGO Movie, thanks to its deftly kiddie-like version of a Christopher Nolan screenplay. The Second Part decides to traverse off into another domain of family morals that sharply resonates as another clever parallel between the real world and the LEGO world that had me, by fair means, moved. Additionally, there are boatloads of themes that are acutely wholesome-although, slightly trite-that kids can blissfully digest. Also, there are some good, good twists in here which ultimately, sustains the LCU's (LEGO Cinematic Universe's) streak of surprises. Yes, it's not quite as authoritative or proficient as the original but, gosh-darn it, I can't deny that I was meticulously spellbinded by this rib-tickling sequel. Everything is totally not not awesome this time around. (Verdict: B-)

• Everything is Less Awesome

  thirtyfivestories2019-02-08

  Five years removed from the infectious first installment, comes a serviceable extension of a story that already had a proper ending. The subtitle The Second Part is surely a half truth considering how this narrative slapped together by the original writers Christopher Miller and Phil Lord seems tacked on in a "Oh let's take a victory lap then" sense. The new director Mike Mitchell is planted into a zero sum game as he tries to reignite the novelty of the first film while propelling a more mature plot that Miller and Lord insisted on being needlessly convoluted. This sequel comes off as a afterthought worthy to stand beside the other spinoff LEGO films, but lacks all of the magic of its predecessor. The magic present in The LEGO Movie resides in the playful allegory of capitalism mixed with the earned nostalgia of the animation's medium. Not to mention the brilliant reveal of a child's imagination directing the entire story. These are all elements revisited the second time around, but the trick has already been explained by the magician. The world of Brickville goes through sufficient changes almost immediately once toddler-sized LEGO creations attack with unrivaled fury. The brick civilization reverts to a Mad Max world after the invincible fat-bricked organisms regularly search and destroy anything colorful or shiny. Through some less-than-subtle live action mirage shots early in the film, its apparent that Finn (Jadon Sand) the boy mastermind in the first film is being plagued by his younger sister Bianca (Brooklynn Prince). Her entry-level LEGO creations clash with his more involved and complex structures, and the result is a sibling pair never learning to play in symbiosis. Of course this conflict is merely implied before the lazy live action finale that resolves the paper thin dispute, and wholly lacks the gusto of the first movie's twist. The jig is already up from scene one of the sequel, because we are aware of the children's narrative dictatorship, so none of the LEGO characters' sentience ever feels authentic. Chris Pratt returns to voice Emmet a happy-go-lucky construction worker who retains a life of cheer in the apocalyptic wasteland. Elizabeth Banks also reprises her role as Lucy, the brawn and brains to Emmet's fumbling optimism. Lucy desperately attempts to calibrate Emmet's persona to something more appropriate to the ruined world they now live in, but he maintains the "everything is awesome" outlook that figures problematic in a much more adult environment. In a hardly tongue-in-cheek fashion, a character outright states the thesis of the movie to be "a statement on the waning affects of adolescence on imagination." This stands as the most egregious example of "meta exploitation," but several runner ups tail close behind. Falling victim to exhausting cleverness, LEGO Movie 2 doesn't know when to edit its goofs. When you merely reformat the first film's plot to fit another child builder, new additions need to elevate the otherwise regurgitated formula. These additions include ramping up the meta meter to 11 and including two more banger tracks to hopefully burrow into the viewers' minds. The main attraction song here has a hook the repeats endlessly, "This song's gonna get stuck inside your head." Oh and I mustn't forget the cameos, which come with This is the End regularity, and if you can imagine, with far less originality. I didn't waste your time by running you down a plot synopsis for good reason. The film plays with your expectations in a cheap and unearned fashion without offering any reasonable explanation upon the conclusion other than, "We just wanted to plant red herrings, because...reasons." Screenwriters will go to great (and absurd) lengths to make an unoriginal script appear more interesting. This parasitic sequel will deliver many chuckles and feels to audiences that have already surrendered to the committee-made trajectory of the LEGO universe, but I feel somber for those choosing to double feature this lackadaisical copy with its bold predecessor.

• Move by a figure

  BiiivAL2019-03-07

  The theme of the cartoon is very close recently in our family. We have constant wars for the right to own toys. Yes, and we partly feel the pain of leg-bitten Lego details. Tellingly, the cartoon turned out to be very musical and cheerful. There is no such thing as in Lego-Ninjago. Everything is simple as 2x2, and this is interesting. New heroes get acquainted with old ones, the "fathers and children" problem has disappeared, a new one has appeared - the oldest and youngest child in the family. Our hero is still cheerful and cheerful, always young, always with coffee. His girlfriend asks him to grow up, but her request will turn her sideways. It is impossible to change a person for the sake of his, for it is not given to anyone except the one responsible for the change of personality. The new characters, which appeared in the second part, are as charming and attractive as the characters in the past film. They will be liked even by Batman Vasilyevich, the eternal loner. In the cartoon can be found in the full composition of the Justice League. In general, there will be many references to other studio projects. This will appeal to adults, children are unlikely to appreciate it. Total. An interesting project for both children and adults: mothers, fathers, grandmothers, grandfathers, great-grandmothers, great-grandfathers, aunts, uncles, and so on. Have you bought a ticket yet? 7 out of 10

• Boring, aimless sequel

  gbozoki2019-02-25

  I loved the first Lego Movie (and the game that was made out of it) - the story was funny, the characters lovable and the whole thing was entertaining. Part 2 is what happens when the sales team decides they need an infusion of money and call down to accounting to hack up a movie in 5 minutes. This is definitely not a kid's movie - it's a soulless, boring hackjob that never even tried to be entertaining - it just wants your money. I can't really say anything positive about this sequel - my 8-year old fell asleep on it, that's how bad it was. There were literally maybe 2 chuckles in the entire auditorium during the movie - the audience (kids and adults) sat through the whole thing in silence. There's no coherent story to speak of; the jokes are lame and out of place and there were many pop culture references that were impossible to get for kids. The musinc was mostly just loud. How the writers managed to ruin characters like Unikitty is simply beyond me - my daughter literally cried that they turned the two-hands-down-cutest-character-ever into a monstrosity. Stick with the first Lego Movie.