The Lego Movie (Nederlands: De Lego Film) is een Amerikaans komische 3D-film uit 2014 van Phil Lord en Christopher Miller met in de originele versie de stemmen van onder meer Chris Pratt en Elizabeth Banks. In de Nederlandstalige versie zijn de stemmen van onder meer Kees Tol en Georgina Verbaan te horen. De film bestaat grotendeels uit met de computer geanimeerde beelden van LEGO-gebaseerde personages en omgevingen, maar bevat ook een klein gedeelte live-action. In de film zijn in totaal 15.080.330 (virtuele) legoblokjes gebruikt. Leeswaarschuwing: Onderstaande tekst bevat details over de inhoud en/of de afloop van het verhaal. Aan het begin van de film slaagt tovenaar Vitruvius (stem Morgan Freeman) er niet in om een "Kragle" geheten superwapen uit handen te houden van de gemene Lord Business (Will Ferrell), maar hij uit de voorspelling dat een persoon aangeduid als "Special" het "Piece of Resistance" zal vinden waarmee de Kragle gestopt kan worden. Jaren later vindt de doodgewone bouwvakker Emmet (Chris Pratt) dit Piece, maar hij wordt gevangengenomen door Business' handlanger Bad Cop (Liam Neeson).
Ene Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks) redt hem en vertelt dat ze beide Master Builders zijn, die alles kunnen bouwen wat ze kunnen bedenken, zonder handleiding, terwijl Business alle creativiteit juist de kop in wil drukken. Samen met andere Master Builders binden ze de strijd aan tegen Business. Later blijkt dat het hele verhaal zich afspeelt in de fantasie van een met Lego spelend jongetje, Finn, wiens vader (ook Will Ferrell) vindt dat de creaties van zijn zoon te wanordelijk zijn, dat wil zeggen niet volgens de handleiding.The requested URL /mq/uttake.php?id=133737 was not found on this server.On Thursday, New York mag critic Bilge Ebiri praised The Lego Movie as, "the best action flick in years, a hilarious satire, [and] an inquiry into the mind of God." And it isn't over-the-top praise—it accurately reflects the overwhelmingly positive critical response to the computer-animated comedy, released on Friday. The film, which is based on—and pays loving tribute to—Lego toys, was co-written and directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller, the pair who directed the fantastic 21 Jump Street reboot and its upcoming sequel.
The Lego Movie takes place mostly in a city in a Lego universe. A construction worker Lego named Emmet Brickowski (voiced by Chris Pratt) must save the Lego realms from imminent destruction and coerced conformity. His comrades are a mysterious female Lego warrior named Wyldstyle; a "Unikitty," which is a unicorn-animé kitten hybrid; a pirate called Metalbeard; and many more goofy and heroic Lego characters. The simple tale is loaded with gleeful pop-culture references and great voice-acting (everyone is in this movie, by the way, from Morgan Freeman and Jonah Hill to Cobie Smulders and Alison Brie). But what makes The Lego Movie even more accessible for viewers above the age of six is the fact that the film is full of political and social satire. The villain is President/Lord Business (voiced by Will Ferrell), who presides over a totalitarian surveillance state. President Business' regime creates virtually everything in the Lego society—generic pop music, lousy TV comedy, cameras, rigged voting machines, you name it.
The dictator/CEO uses extended televised broadcasts to inform his citizens (with a friendly grin on his face) that they'll be executed if they disobey. He controls a secret police led by Bad Cop/Good Cop (Liam Neeson), who is charged with torturing dissidents and rebels. President Business is the Lego Ceaușescu, if you swap the communism for capitalism. Some of this sounds pretty heavy, but it's all filtered through the soft, giddy lens of a kids' movie. Like all other entries into the "kids' movies that their parents can dig, too!" subgenre of cinema, it's this thinly-disguised maturity that makes the film both fun and winkingly smart. UPDATE, February 8, 2014, 12:39 a.m. EST: I missed this earlier, but on Friday, Fox personalities went after The Lego Movie for its allegedly "anti-business" and anti-capitalist message. One says President Business looks a bit like Mitt Romney. Another starts defending Mr. Potter from It's a Wonderful Life (which is just an act of life imitating parody).
This is weird, but not all that different from the Fox reaction to The Muppets and The Lorax. UPDATE 2, February 8, 2014, 4:04 p.m. EST: I asked the Lego Movie directors what they thought of the reaction on Fox Business to their film. Phil Lord got back to me via Twitter: art deserves many interpretations, even wrong ones Now, check out this trailer for The Lego Movie:We have detected a history of abnormal traffic from your network so we ask that you please complete the following form to confirm that you are not a robot and are indeed a real person. Most of this time this happens if there has been a lot of malicious bot activity from your current internet provider's network or you are using a VPN. It likely has nothing to do with you. We're really sorry for the hassle.IT HAS all the building blocks of a blockbuster: a ludicrous plot, a cheesy theme song (“Everything is awesome”) and stars who are not merely enhanced by plastic surgery but actually made of plastic.
Small wonder that “The Lego Movie” rules the American box office. But while children (including your correspondent’s) fall cackling out of their seats at all the slapstick, grown-up pundits are pondering a more serious question: what is the film’s political message?“Practically Communist,” screamed New York magazine’s Vulture blog. “Smart [and] satirical,” agreed Michael Moore, a left-wing documentary filmmaker. “Hollywood pushing its anti-business message to our kids,” fulminated a host on Fox Business Network.The film’s villain is Lord Business, a corporate boss who looks like Mitt Romney and is bent on world domination. The hero is Emmet, an amiable doofus of a construction worker who somehow finds himself leading a rainbow coalition of Lego figures in a revolution that seeks to return power to the people (well, to the Lego figures that look like people).Thus far, “The Lego Movie” fits the old stereotype of Hollywood peddling anti-capitalist propaganda to kids.
The film is also an hour-and-a-half-long commercial for costly toys made by a multinational corporation based in Denmark; a commercial, moreover, that people must pay to see.You can make what you like of “The Lego Movie”, but your correspondent found its message to be pleasingly libertarian: suspicious of top-down power and supportive of individual rights (such as the right of Lego people not to spend eternity in the position Lord Business deems correct). Its target is dull conformity. “Take everything weird and blow it up!” are the instructions to Emmet’s crew at the beginning of the film.Among the institutions it pokes fun at is Lego itself. Once the bricks came in a giant box, and kids were supposed to build what they liked with them; today they are packaged with precisely the right number and type of blocks for a specific purpose, such as building a Death Star. The film is about learning to break free of the instructions on the box. If it has a fault, it is that it underplays the suffering of parents who tread on Lego bricks in bare feet—a fate that befalls conservatives and liberals alike.