The Gotham-saving hero is back and, though he’s tiny enough to fit in your pocket, The LEGO Batman Movie star is aiming for an opening weekend of super proportions. The spinoff of 2014’s surprise hit The LEGO Movie (Will Arnett’s Batman was enough of a scene-stealer to nab his own feature film) hits theaters Friday, and so far, the Caped Crusader has garnered positive reviews from critics. The star-studded cast, also including Zach Galifianakis, Michael Cera, Rosario Dawson, and Ralph Fiennes, also helps to round out the film. EW’s Chris Nashawaty gave the movie a B+, calling it a bit more “devious” than its predecessor, and praised it as “irresistibly clever.” See more of Nashawaty’s review below, as well as excerpts from other critics. Chris Nashawaty, Entertainment Weekly “Arnett’s hilariously humorless Batman turns out to be the fun-size star of what’s basically a comic-book movie for kids who are too young to see comic-book movies…
Good thing that beneath all of the semi-Dark Knight propaganda is an irresistibly clever and visually intoxicating adventure that once again shows why it’s more fulfilling to play with friends than brood alone in your Batcave.” Jesse Hassenger, A.V. Club “In rampaging through Batman mythologies like a child through a playroom, the movie makes an admirable attempt to reconcile kid-friendly adventures with the character’s psychological pain. Arnett plays Batman as, essentially, a young Bat-fan determined to maintain the invincibility of his favorite hero (in this case, himself) even as reality encroaches on his lone-vigilante fantasy; it’s no accident that Alfred can be glimpsed reading a child-rearing book at one point. Cera syncs with this interpretation by playing up Robin’s more innocent childlike qualities. He finds such endearment doing so that despite the spoofy trappings, this Robin rises above mere parody to become a flat-out charming iteration of the superhero sidekick.”
“The characters are Lego minifigures with pegs for heads and crudely etched faces that barely move, yet they have more personality than the majority of human actors. Most delicious of all: The Lego Batman Movie comes on like a kid-friendly sendup of the adult world, yet there’s a dizzying depth to its satirical observations that grows right out of the spectacularly fake settings, which are hypnotic to look at but have the effect of putting postmodern quotation marks around…everything.” Manohla Dargis, New York Times “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.” Michael Rechtshaffen, The Hollywood Reporter “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.” “The film, directed by Chris McKay, is a spin-off of 2014 hit The Lego Movie, an unapologetic product unapologetically selling a product. Sometimes brash, sometimes wearying, that movie at least felt like it was made by the brightest kid in the class. Not so for Lego Batman.” “Much of the material hinges on Batman’s un-superhero-like behavior, as when he throws a childlike tantrum before the stoic butler Alfred (Ralph Fiennes, dry as gin) or stands at the Wayne Manor microwave while his meal rotates for two boring minutes.
These conceits work because director Chris McKay (who assisted on The Lego Movie) has sharp timing but also because Lego Batman plays everything so straight.” “Warner Bros. seems delighted it doesn’t have to coddle a man-size ego like, oh, Zack Snyder’s. It uses The LEGO Batman Movie to apologize for last year’s DC Universe mistakes. “Get a bunch of criminals to fight other criminals? What a stupid idea!” mutters Batman in a swipe at Suicide Squad.” Peter Travers, Rolling Stone “The kids are gonna love it, even if the inside jokes, Freudian subtext and subversive jabs at corporate America sail right over their towheads. As for the, grown-ups, they’ll eat up the antics of this newly lighthearted DC vigilante. “I have aged phenomenally,” he beams. And for the under-10 crowd – pampered with poopy-level sight gags and “wanna-get-nuts” action – everything is PG awesome.”At its sporadic best, the crazy velocity and wisenheimer appeal of "The Lego Batman Movie" reminds you of what made "The Lego Movie" such a nice surprise three years ago.
It was my favorite comedy of 2014, even without that insidiously satiric theme song "Everything is Awesome!"Director Chris McKay's spinoff, however, is more about expectations fulfilled than new surprises, nicely sprung. Basically a conventional superhero action movie with a constant stream of sideline heckling, "The Lego Batman Movie" goes where various franchises housed at various studios have gone before. Just as Iron Man (the target of a running gag here) fell into a narcissistic pool of self-interest and celebrity indulgence in his second movie, the lil' plastic Batman taking center stage is a raging egomaniac, all abs and no heart. He has buried the pain of his parents' murder with a mountain of cool toys and weapons. Amusingly Bruce Wayne/Batman, voiced as he was in a choice supporting role in "The Lego Movie" by Will Arnett, isn't exactly the master of his cavernous domain; he proves somewhat clueless when it comes to working a DVR remote or programming a microwave oven. Only his faithful butler, Alfred, given just the right empathetic tones by Ralph Fiennes, knows what Bruce needs: a surrogate family, so he's not stuck on the couch watching "Jerry Maguire" another lonely night.
MOST READ ENTERTAINMENT NEWS THIS HOUR Toward this end, Bruce casually adopts an orphan, Dick Grayson (Michael Cera, delightfully naive) and ventures outside his loner-vigilante sphere to join forces with Gotham City police Commissioner Barbara Gordon (Rosario Dawson, better than her limited material). Batman's chief nemesis remains, inevitably, the needy, whiny, malevolent Joker (Zach Galifianakis). But as Batman says, "I like to fight around," and the screenplay credited to five writers arranges for one onslaught after another."The Lego Movie" benefited from its sweet-natured protagonist, Emmet, surrounded by a shrewdly judged degree of mayhem. "The Lego Batman Movie" offers more mayhem and less funny. It takes a cheerfully cynical buckshot approach to pop culture spoofing on the run, roping in Superman (Channing Tatum, voice), Harley Quinn (Jenny Slate), references to Batman's past (all the way back to the 1966 Adam West/Burt Ward feature, based on the TV series). Dozens of celeb voice cameos spice the action, from Conan O'Brien as The Riddler to Mariah Carey as the Gotham mayor.