As gateway drugs go, “The Lego Batman Movie” is pretty irresistible. It’s silly without being truly strange or crossing over into absurdity. Along the way it pulls off a nifty balancing act: It gives the PG audience its own Batman movie (it’s a superhero starter kit) and takes swipes at the subgenre, mostly by gently mocking the seriousness that has become a deadening Warner Bros. default. “The Lego Batman Movie” can’t atone for a movie as grindingly bad as the studio’s “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice,” which stars Ben Affleck as the Gotham City brooder, but at least someone on that lot gets the joke. The cast and crew of “The Lego Batman Movie” sustain that joke admirably, filling in its 104-minute running time with loads of busy action, deadpan humor, visual comedy, reflexive bits and an overfamiliar story line. It features the usual cavalcade of marquee-ready talent (Rosario Dawson, Conan O’Brien, Mariah Carey), the comic and less so, but owes much of its pleasure and juice to Will Arnett, who voices Batman.
The movie puts a goofy spin on the Batman saga, but it squeezes its brightest, most sustained comedy from Mr. Arnett’s hypnotically sepulchral voice, which conveys the entire bat ethos — the Sturm und Drang, the darkness and aloneness, the resoluteness and echoiness — in vocal terms. It’s blissfully self-serious, near-Wagnerian and demented.Mr. Arnett anchors the movie, though he’s nicely book-ended by Michael Cera, as the excitable pip-squeaker Dick Grayson, and Ralph Fiennes, who voices Alfred, Bruce Wayne’s trusted butler and operational aide-de-camp. Some of the wittiest moments happen early, before the story machinery starts humming, and involve Batman-Bruce wandering his mansion in his fetishlike mask and a silky red bathrobe, nuking his lobster dinner and giggling solo at “Jerry Maguire.” If Christopher Nolan’s “Dark Knight” cycle suggests that Batman teeters on actual madness, “The Lego Batman Movie” ups the ante by insinuating that he has fully settled into near-Howard Hughes eccentricity.
Not too much nuttiness, mind you, just enough to keep the jokes pinging and zinging, at least until the story amps up. Most of that involves the Joker (Zach Galifianakis), who’s not the transgressive opposition but a whining smiler desperately yearning for Batman’s attention. This isn’t as funny or engaging as the filmmakers seem to think, partly because a child-friendly Joker can’t have the scariness or anarchic threat that distinguishes this character’s better iterations. (He can’t compete partly because he’s nowhere near as loopy as this Batman.) Mostly, the Joker is the master of ceremonies for the rest of the villainous horde, a motley crew of creatures that includes Harley Quinn (Jenny Slate), who’s mostly a trauma trigger for “Suicide Squad,” another supersplat.As an object, “The Lego Batman Movie” looks as good as its predecessor, “The Lego Movie.” This one is similarly shiny and bright, though sometimes as teasingly dark as Batman. Even when the story drags, which it does as the action grows frenetic, the shiny and bright bits catch the eye.
As in the first movie, the character design does much of the most meaningful work because it conveys part of what’s enjoyable about Legos, including their smooth-to-the-touch plastic surfaces and knobby bits (studs in Lego lingo), which you can almost feel in your hands as you watch. One of the satisfactions of Legos is their touch sensation, a sense memory that’s imprinted on brains, too. Basing movies on kiddie playthings is ingenious: It turns every Lego brick into a Rosebud sled, a portal into childhood. That makes resistance fairly futile, or at least tough, especially when the crew ushering you into the past is up to the task, as is the case here. Chris McKay directed this one, working from a jammed script by Seth Grahame-Smith, Chris McKenna, Erik Sommers, Jared Stern and John Whittington. (Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, who directed “The Lego Movie,” helped produce “The Lego Batman Movie.”) The whole vibe is, as the first “Lego” movie insisted with its deliriously catchy anthem, awesome, so, relax, enjoy the show, go with the flow.
I mean, who hates Legos? Isn’t that like hating childhood? Well, of course not, though that gets to what’s frustrating about these movies, which are so insistently good-natured and relentlessly hyped that it feels almost churlishly old-school raising even modest objections to the fact that — in addition to being, you know, fun — they’re also commercials. It’s not new or news that movies have long sold stuff, including studio tie-ins and toys, as Walt Disney explained by example decades ago, though, like Pixar, he was also in the business of storytelling and not merely corporate-brand storytelling and building. Certainly there are worse things in life and definitely worse movies, including the “Transformers” blockbusters, which sell both toys and war.So, as far as commercials go, “The Lego Batman Movie” is just swell. But because its primary function, outside of making bank, is to extend two brands — Lego and Batman — it can’t help but disappoint. One reason that the first “Lego” movie worked as well as it did is that its novelty and trippier moments conveyed a sense of play and unboundedness, which is part of the appeal of Legos themselves.
(It’s the better movie and ad.) The Batman story, by contrast, proves to be a prison, one its creators never escape. They toss around the superstuff and giggle at the legend, but they’re finally confined by the superhero story and its corporate sanctity. It’s a bottom-line bummer.Let friends in your social network know what you are reading aboutTwitterGoogle+LinkedInPinterestPosted!A link has been posted to your Facebook feed. CelebritiesFashionMoviesMusicTVExclusive: Check out new 'LEGO Batman Movie' trailer, toysCLOSExEmbedFor those who can’t deal with the darkness of the live-action Batfleck and need a goofier superhero to root for, we give you the new trailer for The LEGO Batman Movie (in theaters Feb. 10), a spinoff of animated hit The LEGO Movie. Will Arnett reprises his role as a self-assuredly over-the-top Dark Knight who has to learn how to be less of a solo hero and work with a family.As that Jack Nicholson line goes from the 1989 Batman flick, “Where does he get those wonderful toys?”
Well, you can actually bring him some of the coolness from that footage courtesy of some new LEGO building-block sets. We’ve got the exclusive reveal on two of them:“The Joker Balloon Escape” set (124 pieces, $14.99) features minifigures of Batman (duh) and the Joker (voiced by Zach Galifianakis in the movie), a hot air balloon contraption for the Clown Prince of Crime, and a explosive device just primed to do some damage. (The Joker is also very sad to learn that Superman is Bats' new arch enemy. "I like to fight around," Batman tells him.)And “The Scuttler” (775 pieces, $79.99) stars a shiny, fresh Bat-vehicle with tall bat ears and cool robotic-looking limbs. Plus the set is packed with minifigures including Bats himself with a sweet jetpack, Joker, Poison Ivy, Commissioner Gordon, Barbara Gordon and Robin.Both arrive Jan. 1, but if you can’t wait that long, four other LEGO Batman Movie tie-in sets launch Nov. 27 including an awesome Batmobile (dubbed “The Speedwagon") and the Joker’s purple-and-green lowrider he drives with Harley Quinn.Last SlideNext Slide