The requested URL /forums/showthread.php?t=2790875 was not found on this server.3:16 PM PST 2/4/2017 Watching The Lego Batman Movie, the follow-up to the wildly entertaining The Lego Movie, is sort of like reassembling the Lego Star Wars Ultimate Collector’s 5,197-piece Millennium Falcon: The achievement just doesn’t convey the sort of triumphant, giddy satisfaction that it did the first time. Maybe it also has something to do with the fact that Will Arnett’s hilariously egotistical Caped Crusader has been promoted from mightily effective scene-stealer to the role of all Batman, all the time — which can prove to be too much of a good thing. Whatever the reasons, although there is still much to enjoy here, this DC Comics-fueled Lego adventure fails to clear the creative bar so energetically raised by co-directors and writers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller back in 2014. Not that it will face any hurdles at the box office, with an all-ages-appropriate PG rating that should give the Warner Bros. release a solid run at the original’s $469 million worldwide haul.
With Lord and Miller otherwise occupied (they're currently directing the upcoming, untitled Han Solo Star Wars movie), the spinoff was trusted to Chris McKay, who served as animation director and editor on The Lego Movie, along with a whole bunch of screenwriters. They immediately get down to the business of nailing the requisite tone, with Batman’s gravelly growl first manifesting itself over the opening production logos, offering amusing takes on the importance of starting with a black screen and dramatic musical cues. But the self-satisfied Dark Knight is starting to see that constantly dealing with The Joker (voiced by Zack Galifianakis) and his fellow fiendish rogues offers diminishing compensation for the fact that his solitary life on Wayne Island is getting pretty lonely. Encouraged by his faithful butler Alfred (Ralph Fiennes), he adopts the orphaned Dick Grayson (Michael Cera), while defending his track record against Gotham City’s new commissioner, Barbara Gordon (Rosario Dawson), who contends the lone vigilante approach is no longer getting the job done.
While on the subject of teamwork, the writers — including novelist Seth Grahame-Smith (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies), Chris McKenna & Erik Sommers (Community) and Jared Stern & John Wittington (the upcoming animated Netflix series Green Eggs and Ham) — find no shortage of satirical targets, taking sly aim at everything from Suicide Squad to Donald Trump’s taxes. But they and director McKay prove less adept at finding that terrific balance between the blissfully inspired and a non-syrupy sweetness that made the first brick-and-knob feature excursion so successful. Instead, there’s an overriding, more-the-merrier philosophy that restlessly ventures beyond the DC universe, resulting in a frenetic pile-on that includes representatives from such Warner Bros. entities as The Wizard of Oz, Harry Potter and The Matrix. Performance-wise, Arnett certainly gives it his disaffected all, as does his fellow voice cast of thousands, which includes Jenny Slate as Harley Quinn, Channing Tatum as Superman, Conan O’Brien as The Riddler, Billy Dee Williams as Two-Face, Mariah Carey as Gotham’s Mayor McCaskill, Doug Benson as Bane and Apple’s Siri providing the calming tones of Batman’s trusty ‘Puter.
Australian animation company Animal Logic is again responsible for digitizing those millions of bricks, but this time the effect doesn’t seem to possess the same visual magic as before. Like the rest of The Lego Batman Movie, all the pieces are in place, but they just don’t have that same connective snap. Production companies: Warner Animation Group, RatPac-Dune Entertainment, LEGO System A/S, Lin Pictures/Lord Miller/Vertigo Entertainment Cast: Will Arnett, Zach Galifianakis, Michael Cera, Rosario Dawson, Ralph Fiennes, Jenny Slate, Conan O'Brien, Doug Benson, Billy Dee Williams, Zoe Kravitz, Eddie Izzard, Seth Green, Jemaine Clement, Ellie Kemper, Channing Tatum, Jonah Hill, Adam Devine, Hector Elizondo, Mariah Carey Screenwriters: Seth Grahame-Smith, Chris McKenna & Erik Sommers, Jared Stern & John Whittington Producers: Dan Lin, Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, Roy Lee Executive producers: Jill Wilfert, Matthew Ashton, Will Allegra, Brad Lewis, Zareh Nalbandian, Steven Mnuchin
Production designer: Grant Freckelton Editors: David Burrows, Matt Villa, John Venzon Casting director: Mary HidalgoHome > Product Reviews > Game Reviews > Lego Batman 3 is cookie-cutter game design at its worst. It’s a perfectly functional game, with bright colors, family-friendly play, and grin-worthy writing, but it’s undeniably safe. There’s nothing remotely interesting or forward-thinking about it; worse even, it manages to step back from some of the new ideas its predecessor introduced. The biggest shame of all is that it’s not broken out of the gate. At least in that case, developer TT Games might be encouraged to re-think its increasingly stale Lego game framework. This is a series that refuses to grow, even as it chases an older audience. It’s a new adventure for Batman and his pals in the Justice League. Brainiac is out to shrink down the planet Earth for his private collection, and he’s using the combined powers of the cosmic Lantern Corps (and Sinestro Corps) to win his prize.
Only the collected talents of DC Comics’ mightiest heroes can hope to stop him. Lego Batman 2 moved the series forward by introducing Gotham City as a freely explorable open world for the first time in any Lego game. Beyond Gotham reins that freedom in, with exploration restricted to hubs like the Batcave and the Watchtower, Justice League’s orbital base. There’s still plenty of stuff to find. Minikit pieces, hidden characters, context-specific collectibles, and more fill every level. Most of it can’t be unearthed on an initial playthrough since the characters in each level – and abilities you have access to – are scripted. To find and fully unlock everything, you need to run through each level twice, at the very least: Once for the story and again, in Free Play, for the collectibles. The cast of 150-plus characters ranges from known DC faves like Batgirl and Lobo to lesser-known characters like Doctor Fate and The Fierce Flame – but they all draw from the same, limited pool of powers.
The Fierce Flame is basically just a palette-swapped Flash; Doctor Fate just combines the abilities of two “core” characters. Then there are random cast members, like Kevin Smith (armed with a sonar gun, for some reason) and original 1960s Batman actor Adam West, unlocked by completing “Adam West In Peril” mini-challenges in each level. They’re joined by DC execs Jim Lee and Geoff Johns, and late-night host Conan O’Brien, who serves as your tour guide in each hub. The result is a game that doesn’t seem to identify its audience properly. Again and again, TT Games has defended design decisions like the lack of online play in Lego games as the price paid for family-friendliness in its games. But what young gamer really knows who Conan O’Brien is? Is a 10-year-old really going to get excited about playing as Geoff Johns? Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham can’t make up its mind about what type of fan it should serve. There’s plenty to discover outside the story missions.
Unlocking gold bricks – the series’ standard marker of progress – opens up access to a series of hub areas, Earthly and otherwise. In addition to familiar locations like the Hall of Justice, there are also exploration zones on each of the Lantern worlds (in addition to the story levels for each one). There are also new VR Missions that amount to quick-hit challenges you can complete for even more rewards. It’s a lot of content, sure, but there’s not enough depth in the gameplay to justify anyone pursuing 100-percent completion. Combat still boils down to mashing on buttons until all the enemies are gone. Puzzles are just simple as they’ve always been, with a static difficulty designed to favor the youngest audience possible. But it’s been almost 10 years since the first of these titles – Lego Star Wars: The Video Game – arrived, and the series has failed to grow with its audience. The writing is sharp, no question. It’s hard not to grin when Wonder Woman takes flight to the sounds of the old TV show’s theme song.