This post contains SPOILERS for The LEGO Batman Movie Last week, Warner Bros. released the second installment of their blossoming LEGO film franchise, The LEGO Batman Movie, to widespread critical acclaim and a solid $55.6 million opening weekend haul. Though the project featured Will Arnett reprising his hilarious version of the Dark Knight from 2014’s The LEGO Movie, this production was essentially a standalone adventure that made no overt references to LEGO Batman’s previous adventure with Emmet and Wyldstyle. Director Chris McKay was more concerned with constructing a well-meaning parody of Batman mythology than forcing continuity between the two films. Since LEGO Movie and LEGO Batman were fairly disconnected, some might be wondering how (or if) the pair is intertwined in the overarching picture of the LEGO movie world. As it turns out, the two are very much part of the same series, and the plan is for LEGO Batman to have some kind of effect on 2019’s The LEGO Movie Sequel, which recently found a new director in the form of Trolls helmsman Mike Mitchell.
While speaking with EW, McKay opened up about how the spinoff fits into what the creative team has already established, including its relationship with the real world element that was a crucial part of the first LEGO Movie: Everyone says this, but for lack of a better phrase, there’s a LEGO cinematic universe that we’re building that has a sci-fi premise, as far as the world that the movies are taking place in for the majority of the running time, and the other world that’s out there. I think over the course of the movies, we’re building out the relationship between those. There’s no mandate necessarily to do that, but we are very actively working to find all of the rules and develop that relationship between the real world and the LEGO world. You’ll start to see it in what we’re doing with Ninjago and what what we’re doing in LEGO 2. Since the LEGO franchise is still in its early stages, it isn’t surprising that the filmmakers are continuing to iron out the rules of the world and figure out the proper balance.
It’s good to hear that there isn’t a “mandate” on that front, and the top priority seems to be telling entertaining and heartfelt stories that delight moviegoers young and old. Fans are probably looking forward to seeing more of the dynamic between our world and the LEGO world, but it has to be a natural fit for the narrative at hand. In LEGO Batman‘s case, there may not have been a good time to cut back to “reality,” so to speak. Additionally, that subplot in The LEGO Movie was so well-handled, any attempt to duplicate it in LEGO Batman would run the risk of being less genuine and not as affecting. For the purposes of this movie, it’s better we stayed in Gotham and the rest of the LEGO DC universe. Those who enjoy Arnett’s riff on the Caped Crusader will be pleased to learn the plan is to bring him back for The LEGO Movie Sequel. McKay told EW, “There are going to be the repercussions of what’s happened in [LEGO Batman]. If you agree that he went through some change, there’s more stuff in store for Batman in LEGO 2.”
This is a nice development that shows LEGO Batman isn’t just some one-off sideshow; it’s an integral part of the franchise at hand and has a lot of value. After seeing Batman learn the importance of working with friends, it would be a shame if he reverted back to his loner ways like nothing ever happened. Perhaps some of his new family members, like Robin or Barbara Gordon, could return as well. NEXT: LEGO Batman Movie Easter Eggs The LEGO Batman Movie release date: Feb 10, 2017The LEGO Ninjago Movie release date: Sep 22, 2017The LEGO Movie 2/LEGO Movie Sequel release date: Feb 8, 2019Everything in "The Lego Movie" is, indeed, awesome.Awesome as in imagine if "Toy Story" were spoofed by Mel Brooks after he ate magic mushrooms while reading George Orwell's 1984.Awesome as in the sort of silly yet wily kid-appropriate PG-rated performance by Will Ferrell that you've been waiting for ever since "Elf" came out more than a decade ago.Awesome as in geeking out over the sight of a grim little Batman hitching a ride on the Millennium Falcon piloted by a smart-ass little Han Solo—with a suavely plastic Lando Calrissian in a flash of a cameo.
To be honest, my enthusiastic reaction might be slightly skewed by the fact that "Everything Is Awesome" is both the title and most insidious lyric of a catchier-than-a-Norovirus musical number whose sweeping camerawork over a Lego-ized cityscape is almost as impressive as the opening sequence of "West Side Story". Somehow, the dastardly ditty has taken up permanent residence in my brain, snaking into the cubby hole previously occupied by the Pee-wee's Playhouse TV-show theme. Normally, I oppose the trend of plaything-based moviemaking, especially when the results are as brain-numbingly awful as "Transformers", "G.I. Joe" and "Battleship". But if those uninspired efforts had featured not just Michelangelo the Teenage Mutant Ninja but also Michelangelo the ultimate Renaissance artist as they fight for the greater good of interlocking mankind, maybe they would have changed my mind, too. Besides, with so many animation powerhouses settling for easy-money sequels lately (we mean you, Pixar, DreamWorks, Universal and 20th Century Fox), it is exceedingly cool that a major-studio family film refuses to simply capitalize on merchandising spinoffs by offering an oppressive 100-minute commercial.
Instead, "The Lego Movie" manages to be a smartly subversive satire about the drawbacks of conformity and following the rules while celebrating the power of imagination and individuality. It still might be a 100-minute commercial, but at least it's a highly entertaining and, most surprisingly, a thoughtful one with in-jokes that snap, crackle and zoom by at warp speed. This surreal 3-D computer-animated pop-cultural cosmos overseen by directors/co-writers Phil Lord and Chris Miller, the talented team behind 2009's "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs", takes off from those countless amateur fan-produced stop-motion films found online before concluding with rather ingenious live-action interlude.For once, an overly familiar plot is intended to be overly familiar as this action comedy lampoons nearly every fantasy-sci-fi-comic-book-pirate-cowboy movie cliché that has been in existence at least since George Lucas and Steven Spielberg turned Hollywood into a blockbuster-producing boy-toy factory.
Our unlikely hero is Emmet (earnestly and engagingly voiced by Chris Pratt of TV's "Parks and Recreation"), an unremarkable construction worker who is perfectly happy with his staid generic existence as an ordinary citizen of the metropolis of Bricksburg. As is the custom among his peers, Emmet doesn't just avoid overthinking. He barely thinks at all. But after dawdling on a work site after hours, Emmet finds himself tumbling into an underworld where a wise Obi-Wan Kenobi-type wizard named Vitruvius (Morgan Freeman, mocking his history of movie mentorships) mistakenly declares him to be the Special, the greatest Master Builder of them all. Unfortunately, special is exactly what Emmet isn't and he appears to be ill-equipped to battle the monstrous foe at hand. That would be Ferrell's President Business, a maniacal manipulator whose looming overlord alter-ego is a sly nod at the actor's despot in "Megamind". The minute that a swivel-headed henchman named Bad Cop/Good Cop starts spouting menacing threats in Liam Neeson's Irish-inflected rumble, you know that a "release the Kraken!" joke can't be far behind.
And "The Lego Movie" does not disappoint, as Ferrell's control-freak villain aims to glue all the pieces of the city in place permanently—no freeform deviations allowed.From there, Emmet and would-be love interest Wyldstyle—a tough-chick cross between "The Matrix"'s Trinity and Joan Jett blessed with Elizabeth Banks's vocal spunk—enter a surreal hodge-podge universe where Lord of the Rings-style warriors, Star Wars and Harry Potter characters, superheroes, Abraham Lincoln and even basketball star Shaquille O'Neal (a legacy of an actual 2003 NBA-sanctioned Lego set) join forces to foil President Business's nefarious plan.It isn't fair to reveal what happens next, other than to say that it continues to be, yes, awesome despite a paucity of female characters (toothache-sweet Unikitty who presides over Cloud Cuckoo Land doesn't quite count) and maybe a bit too much crash-boom bombast. Alas, I would be remiss if I didn't issue a heads-up to parents: "The Lego Movie"'s tie-ins include 17 new building sets and 16 new characters.