Date: Sunday February 10 2019
Location: Cinemark Theater in Stroud Mall
Time: 11:55am
Party: 3 (my mom, sister and I)
Director: Mike Mitchell
Writers: no many to name...
Composer: Mark Mothersbaugh
Cast:
Emmett/REX Dangervest- Chris Pratt
Lucy/Wildstyle- Elizabeth Banks
Unikitty- Alison Brie
Batman- Will Arnett
Queen Watevra Wa'Nabi- Tiffany Haddish
General Mayhem- Stephanie Beatriz
Mom- Maya Rudolph
Finn- Jadon Sand
Bianca- Brooklynn Prince
Opening Comments
Going to the movies is an experience and a lot of the time, that experience depends on the audience just as much as the movie itself. While this movie wasn't as terrible as a lot of the reviews said, sitting in a great audience made it better than it would have been without. Lego movies are essentially directed towards kids and if they're chatting through the movie and commenting on various lines of dialogue, the filmmakers did their job right. The theater wasn't completely crowded, but there were enough people where it added to the experience. Kinda like the 12th man at a football game-- I'd never personally been to one in person, but they talk about the 12th man a lot. Especially in Seattle where they have a "12" flag waving above the stadium.
Also there are some spoilers about the first movie coming ahead...
Trailers
As always, there were seven of them... and nearly all of them were kids movies or directed towards this target audience. Nothing that I'm personally excited about, but that's fine. I have my eye on a couple movies this year-- mostly Marvel related, like Captain Marvel and the conclusion of the Avengers franchise. And of couse another Star Wars movie, but that's not until December
How to train your dragon: the hidden world
I have an idea how this movie/franchise is ultimately going to end, and it's going to be a tearjerker for sure. It was a good franchise, but I'm still not quite over the last movie...
Missing Link
It's about Bigfoot, but his name is Sue and with a guy voiced by Hugh Jackman, they travel to the mountains of Asia to find the Yeti. The animation style screams Wallace & Gromit.
The Secret Life of Pets 2
I still need to see the original... but it's hard to know what to make of what this movie is about because every trailer is different. This one is where the cat tries to teach the cute little poodle how to be a cat. It's funny, how they go into the differences between dogs and cats.
Toy Story 4
Ok, I lied... or I just forgot about this one. There's a lot of Disney movies coming out this year that I want to see too. Aladdin and Lion King were part of my childhood and in fact among the first movies I saw in theaters. (I don't remember much about what it was like seeing the movie, but I remember my dad took me to see Aladdin- my first theater trip ever). I'm just disappointed that they premiered a trailer at the SuperBowl and they're still using this teaser trailer where it shows all the characters dancing in a circle to Joni Mitchell. I don't know the song, but I noticed "ice cream castles" was a lyric- Prince used that lyric to create a song/album for The Time that was ultimately where their songs from Purple Rain ended up. The title track is really good and the Purple Rain material is good, but the rest of it was very meh... (the song is "Both Sides Now" but it's a more upbeat version than what I'm used to hearing in the one scene in "Love Actually")
Wonder Park
The trailers for this movie are really coming out in full swing now. It's about a park that a young girl makes up and it winds up becoming real and she has to save it with some talking animals.
Shazam
I'm still not sure what the heck this superhero movie is about. But definitely not one of those second-tier superhero like Iron-Man that's going to launch an entire franchise/universe. It seems like the only thing the DC Universe has gotten right is Wonder Woman... and maybe Aquaman. I haven't seen that one yet, but it made a lot of money and was rated well.
Detective Pikachu
I'm ready for another trailer cuz I'd seen this one at least twice already... I'm still on the fence about whether or not I like the idea or not. Deadpool doing the voice of Pikachu is still strange to me. I also don't know if this is supposed to be a parody or legit and it's just coming off as a farce. Some of the renderings of the Pokémon are really well done, but others, I'm not really impressed with. Just speaking as a long time fan (20 years in fact!) of the main video game franchise.
The Main Attraction
After hearing some reviews, I didn't really have a lot of hope that this movie would be any good. I remember the first one coming out and liking the idea, but I didn't know if the rest of the franchise can follow suit.
This movie wound up surprising a bit, especially when they start to explain what's really going on behind the scenes. Or should I say in the real world.
It starts right from where the original movie left off. In reality, it's revealed that Lord Business was the dad and he wanted everything in his Lego Land to follow the instructions and he didn't want his kids touching his things. But he decides to let his son Finn play with the Legos and says his sister should get to play too.
That's when the Duplos invade Bricksburg and start to take over and life for the denizens change as they know it. Everyone is forced to toughen up... except for Emmett, who pretty much stays the same.
The crazy thing about what the Bricksburg becomes... it's almost like it became an animated version of the Mad Max universe via Fury Road where they're living in the desert and the vehicles are harsh and everyone is wearing some sort of armor. Even Unikitty, who was the optimistic rainbow of the original movie, has toughened up and it's sad to see.
Luckily, Emmett is still going about his life as he always has. But he worries that it's not enough for Lucy, who he'd gotten together with after the last movie. She wants him to change and get with the times.
Then the Duplos come in and take a lot of the main characters from the original movie to meet their leader. Almost like they're invaders from outer space and they kidnap Lucy, Metalbeard, Benny the spaceship enthusiast, Batman and Unikitty.
The leader is voiced by Tiffany Haddish, who probably got this role (well-deserved, by the way) because she was a scene-stealer in the movie Girls Trip. She changes her form constantly and it's more than a little bizarre. All of the hereoes start to buy into her vision, but Lucy is not going for it. Considering she did a whole song and dance number about not being evil, it's hard to fully believe her.
On the other side of things, Emmett tries to get into space to save his friends and he allies with a seemingly cooler version of himself, Rex Dangervest, who apparently has velociraptors as allies. I guess they couldn't resist marrying the two Chris Pratt franchises together and with it being in space, they almost get Guardians of the Galaxy in there too.
All the while, there's a deadline looming at 5:15, according to Emmett's visions. And the Duplos need to be defeated or else Armomagedon will happen... it doesn't take a genius to figure where this is going, considering the dynamic of the otherworld with Finn and his sister, Bianca.
There's a lot of twists and turns you don't completely see coming and the bad guys aren't who you think they are. It challenges a lot of the conventions we're used to seeing in movies. Just when you think something is obvious, they flip the script on you. In that respect, it is kinda cool, but it maybe takes a little too long to reach that point.
But ultimately I think they made the movie to teach a lesson. Telling all the siblings watching the movie to give each other a break and try to play together nicely or else they won't be able to play at all.
I know I had that issue with my own sister growing up. As is often the case, we got closer when we got older. And we found a lot of common ground whether it's binging YouTube videos or competition shows on Food Network.
There's also a joke in the movie that's relatable to any parent who's ever stepped on a Lego.
Like the last movie, there were songs involved too. But there's nothing as catchy as "Everything is Awesome"- although that did make a comeback in a number of ways. There's one song that literally says how the song is going to get stuck inside of your head. Despite the five minutes or so it had in the movie and that it came back for the credits, I managed to not get it in my head... I've gotten some silly crap in my head before. Like those songs they have on the Target ads. Seriously, it's gotten so annoying with these songs. They have nothing to do with the products they're selling and they're nonsense, dime-a-dozen pop songs. "The Middle" came out of that and to me, that's the worst pop song to come out since "Call me maybe"- it's very rhyme-dictionary. I'd say I could write something better, but I literally can't write a song because I listen to too much music. There's too likely that I'd write something and it'd sound exactly like something else I'd heard hundreds of times before.
Now I'm just side-tracking.
It was nice how they added references to the Batman movie they released last year. And they had a brief cameo of Unikitty's kingdom from her TV series.
Yeah, they seriously made a kid's show about Unikitty being the princess of a kingdom and there are all these crazy characters and their antics. My sister loves it and I'm oddly a sucker for it too. Even if it makes no sense at all. Speaking of Mad Max, there was a show recently about Unikitty wanting to bring a rainbow to FrownTown, saying that everyone deserves the chance to be happy if only for a second. She and her friends are in this big vehicle. Meanwhile, Master Frown comes up in his own that reminded me of a vehicle in the movie where there's this guy standing at the helm shredding a guitar. Except Master Frown is doing this with keyboards. But they're crossing a desert and the vehicles are fighting each other like chariots in the Coliseum. It's pretty wild.
I get the intrigue about Mad Max: Fury Road... but the environment and the society... it's not easy to swallow and I'd rather not see it more than once.
Grade: B+
Not the best movie in the world, but it teaches some good lessons for its younger target audience
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