The LEGO Movie

When I first heard there was a LEGO movie in production, I thought, meh. Then I heard Phil Lord and Christopher Miller were working on it. AND I FREAKED OUT LIKE A FAN GIRL.

I've talked about that pair a bunch of times in my posts. Basically, these two guys just kinda popped up on the scene with a huge hit, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. Not only was it a brilliant comedy, but a stellar parody of disaster films, while perfectly capturing the magic of the book. Then, they made 21 Jump Street. It was a great parody of 80s culture, current high school culture, and stereotypes around each character type. Simply put, these guys are geniuses. And they keep proving that again and again.

The LEGO movie is a masterpiece. It's a brilliant blend of comedy and sentimentality for anyone who grew up loving the toys. It tells a brilliantly cliche story, one that we've all heard a million times, but with enough silly twists and turns to believe that a child thought of this story. We see stunning animation, brilliantly working as a stop motion look alike while also showing the necessity to computer generate the images. Characters move in hilarious ways, both highlighting the limitations of LEGO characters and yet showing an amazing amount of versatility as well.

But of course it's not just the looks that make this movie brilliant. The voice cast is nothing short of phenomenal. Morgan Freeman is at his funniest, and yet his most recognizably wise. Will Ferrel plays the wonderfully quirky villain, a character with amazing humor and design, it's impossible to not like this guy. Liam Neeson plays a great parody of the Mayor of Halloween town, a good cop/bad cop mashup. Will Arnett plays a HILARIOUS LEGO Batman, making fun of the Christian Bale Batman, even referencing a few lines from the Dark Knight series. But it's amazing that such an iconic character still successfully works in the background, allowing our hilarious lead character, voiced by Chris Pratt, shine as the focus of the story, along with Morgan Freeman's and Elizabeth Bank's characters.

The LEGO Movie had me feel every feeling. Laughter at the great sense of humor, happiness to see such successful portrayals of great characters, sentimentality for the toys themselves, and even sadness as I missed the time spent with my own father building (Granted, he was a bit like the villain's true persona...). It's going to be a classic for me, and I'm so excited to see where Lord and Miller bring their talents next. They now have one heck of a fan supporting them

Rank - 5/5