The Lego Movie
Directed by Chris Miller and Phil Lord
Distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures
The Lego Movie, a film garnering international popularity since its Copenhagen premier Feb. 1, has been surrounded with a positive buzz for a reason other than its ability to keep children seated quietly for longer than an hour—it features a wit so dry and a tongue so firmly in cheek, you would be surprised it doesn’t impair the dialogue.
Emphasizing no particular theme or playset exclusively, the film’s plot flows through a scattered world of plastic and imagination, reworking genres, clichés, and pop culture icons into the story to enact various scenes, just as you could imagine a child with a limited Lego collection doing.
Attributed as the “world’s first postmodern toy film” by Steven Zeitchik of the Los Angeles Times, The Lego Movie has captured the limelight for its loyalty to innovation rather than the tried-and-true, and is now boasting a 96 per cent ‘fresh’ rating on the critic-centred site, Rotten Tomatoes.
But what is it about a story featuring little Danish toy blocks that has ignited the creativity of so many?
Much of the film’s strength is derived entirely from the limitations allotted by attempting to present a film entirely appearing in this plastic medium.
For example, with Lego’s boiled-down physiologies, the movie’s Big Kiss is simply symbolized by the holding of circular yellow hands, and settings that would generally be smooth and flowing, such as waves on the ocean, take on a stop-motion feel, as they seamlessly deconstruct and reconstruct themselves with translucent blues bricks.
The plot conventions are only utilized so far as they are needed to have the desired fun, much as they would be by a child at play.
The Lego Movie’s plotline is unapologetically quintessential, with the everyman (personified well by an average Lego City-set construction worker) discovering a prophecy foretelling him to be the most interesting and important individual in the universe (which, as Morgan Freeman’s self-deprecating character laments, must be true, “as it rhymes”).
In addition, the production crew, directed by Christopher Miller and Phil Lord, never seem to forget how much fun a toy film requires, especially in regards to the fourth wall.
This perspective-bending begins by removing bricks in the (Lego) wall for the audience to peek through. From including Lego instruction booklets within the plot as the film world’s non-fiction, to knocking the wall down entirely as can be seen in the third-act twist, the audience is actively invited to participate in the film.
Although the notion of a toy-branded film has been re-interpreted multiple times within recent years, examples being Battleship or G.I. Joe, The Lego Movie demonstrates that the most important element for a toy film is the same as that of a toy itself—boundless imagination.
