The LEGO Movie is one of my most-anticipated films of 2014 because I’m pretty much on board with anything directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller are going to do since I adore their first two movies, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and 21 Jump Street. For The LEGO Movie, the plot focuses on Emmet (voiced by Chris Pratt), a construction worker who finds himself anointed “The Special”, a master builder who will lead a band of rebels to save the world. Naturally, Emmet is not only completely inept, there’s nothing special about him. “We like the challenge of a story around the most generic, forgettable man in the universe,” says Lord. Hit the jump for new images from the film and to learn more about the characters. Click here for Steve’s interview with Lord and Miller from Comic-Con. The film also features the voices of Elizabeth Banks, Will Arentt, Liam Neeson, Morgan Freeman, and Will Ferrell. The LEGO Movie opens in 3D on February 7, 2014. Although there may not be anything special when it comes to Emmet’s abilities, he makes up for it in spirit.
Pratt tells USA Today: “Emmet’s enthusiasm is something we share,” says Pratt. “I seem to be really enthusiastic about things as well in life. Maybe more so than I should be. It’s probably why (directors) Chris and Phil had me in mind when they created the character.” Emmet’s incompetence will also be counterbalanced by the highly competent Wyldstyle (Banks): The free-spirited Master Builder has an independent streak as wild as the color streaks in her plastic hair. She’s a car-building specialist, tough and respected. “She’s definitely on equal footing with the guys,” says Banks. “She is real sassy. She overcomes all obstacles, including that she’s a tiny Lego.” Banks says “Wyldstyle is very much me in two-inch form. I brought as much of my sass and attitude that I could get into her.” Emmet, Wyldstyle, and the rest of the rebellion will be facing off against the villain President Business (Ferrell), whose true identity is “Lord Business” (awesome), who is overseeing a robot militia so he can take over the LEGO world:
“The ruler of this universe wants everything to stay exactly where he put it and every piece to be in its place,” says Lord. “Innovators like Master Builders drive him crazy.” Ferrell is a good fit to voice both characters “since he can get really frustrated in a really funny way,” says Miller. I’ll be interested to see how President/Lord business differs from Ferrell’s most famous villain, Mugatu (“I feel like I’m taking crazy pills!”). Every good villain needs a good henchman and Lord Business gets half of one in Good Cop/Bad Cop (Neeson). The schizophrenic character has a good face drawn on one side of his head and a bad face on the other: “We would have Liam do a scene where he would have this friendly, high-pitched voice for Good Cop and then a mean, deep voice for Bad Cop,” says Miller. “He was really good at it.” The voice of the Bad Cop side isn’t too surprising but it was delightful to hear Neeson do a high-pitched voice in the Comic-Con trailer.
Circling back to the good guys, Emmet will be helped by the Gandalf-like Vitruvius. The character is voiced by Freeman, which would seem fairly obvious to have him be the voice of wisdom except there’s a fun twist: “We thought he should look like Gandalf, and it would be so funny if we had this voice that everyone trusts,” says Lord. “And then we gave him the most ridiculous things to say.” Finally, while there are original characters in the movie, Lord and Miller will be taking advantage of LEGO’s licensed properties. There will be cameos throughout the movie, but it looks like Batman will be getting a featured role. However, this is obviously a more comic Dark Knight: “He does have a few shortcomings. He might not be the greatest Batman,” says Will Arnett. “But he’s the baddest character in the movie. And he’s a good guy.”Dir: Phil Lord, Christopher Miller; Starring: Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Banks, Will Arnett, Will Ferrell, Morgan Freeman, Liam Neeson, Alison Brie (voices).
U cert, 100 min. Andy Warhol would have been knocked sideways by The Lego Movie. The new animation from Warner Bros. takes art and commerce and clicks them together as naturally and satisfyingly as a pair of plastic bricks on their way to becoming a castle or spaceship. Never before have I felt less like a film was selling me a product, and then left the cinema more desperate to fill my house with the product it wasn’t selling. That’s largely because The Lego Movie is swooningly in love with the Lego brick itself: its look, its feel, its clutchable there-ness. The film is computer-generated, but it looks like an old-fashioned stop-motion production. Individual bricks and figures come scratched, scuffed and smeared with fingerprints. The Lego world looks lived-in. No, even better: played-with. And playfulness is the prevailing sprit. At ground level, The Lego Movie is an uproariously funny family adventure – a Star Wars-Matrix hybrid with jokes, that bounds along with a kind of crazed, caffeinated energy.
Dig down a little, though, and you realise that Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, the film’s two-man writing and directing team, are telling a classic quest story precisely because those stories are so Lego-ish at heart. Two sides in the Lego world are vying for supremacy. One is led by Lord Business (Will Ferrell), the ruler of Bricksburg, a bustling city where the cars and buildings are all assembled, and lives are lived, in line with the instructions. The other is made up of the Master Builders; visionaries and outlaws who see new, exciting ways to connect the blocks Lord Business would rather remain in place. LEGO CULTURAL ICONS: picture special The security of order versus the thrill of working outside it: that’s the struggle at the heart of any number of classic adventure films, but it’s also a choice made by every seven-year-old who’s ever unwrapped a brand new Lego set. Do you follow the instructions, and end up with the model on the box? Or do you set the manual aside, click the pieces together at random, and see what chance produces?
This decision also faces Emmet (Chris Pratt), a Bricksburg builder whose life, when we first encounter it, is one never-ending routine. Wake up, exercise, work, eat, relax, sleep, repeat. He does this every day, in order, and fits in because of it. His favourite song is everyone’s favourite song: a pop track called ‘Everything Is Awesome’ that’s catchier than Velcro. But unbeknownst to him, Emmet is also The Chosen: a saviour foretold in a prophesy by a Morgan Freeman-like sage – who is, brilliantly, voiced by Morgan Freeman. The hooded freedom-fighter Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks) finds him and whisks him out of the city and into new, unexplored parts of the Lego universe, where they plot Lord Business’s downfall, with help from Wyldstyle’s celebrity boyfriend, Lego Batman (Will Arnett). Will Ferrell attends the premiere of the film The Lego Movie REUTERS Each dimension is home to a particular range of Lego kits, and the long-standing favourites like pirates, Wild West and space are where most of the action takes place.
Less-successful Lego sub-brands, meanwhile, such as the unloved Fabuland and Galidor ranges, are hastily covered in a self-deprecating montage. There are so many blink-and-miss-them moments to appreciate: in another wonderful detail, a 1980s-vintage spaceman character, voiced by Charlie Day, has a helmet that has snapped in exactly the place where all the 1980s Lego spacemen figures’ helmets used to snap. Parents who themselves grew up with Lego in their toy-boxes will almost certainly feel the prickle of nostalgia, and a sweet, witty passage late in the film acknowledges that for fathers, in particular, a son or daughter’s plastic bricks can spirit them back to a childhood long-past. Lord and Miller, both former sitcom writers, have arrived here via two unexpected hits: the 3D animation Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and their comic reboot of the teen police drama 21 Jump Street. Those films didn’t have to be particularly inventive or thoughtful or witty to turn a profit, but they were.