3:16 PM PST 2/4/2017 Watching The Lego Batman Movie, the follow-up to the wildly entertaining The Lego Movie, is sort of like reassembling the Lego Star Wars Ultimate Collector’s 5,197-piece Millennium Falcon: The achievement just doesn’t convey the sort of triumphant, giddy satisfaction that it did the first time. Maybe it also has something to do with the fact that Will Arnett’s hilariously egotistical Caped Crusader has been promoted from mightily effective scene-stealer to the role of all Batman, all the time — which can prove to be too much of a good thing. Whatever the reasons, although there is still much to enjoy here, this DC Comics-fueled Lego adventure fails to clear the creative bar so energetically raised by co-directors and writers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller back in 2014. Not that it will face any hurdles at the box office, with an all-ages-appropriate PG rating that should give the Warner Bros. release a solid run at the original’s $469 million worldwide haul.
With Lord and Miller otherwise occupied (they're currently directing the upcoming, untitled Han Solo Star Wars movie), the spinoff was trusted to Chris McKay, who served as animation director and editor on The Lego Movie, along with a whole bunch of screenwriters. They immediately get down to the business of nailing the requisite tone, with Batman’s gravelly growl first manifesting itself over the opening production logos, offering amusing takes on the importance of starting with a black screen and dramatic musical cues. But the self-satisfied Dark Knight is starting to see that constantly dealing with The Joker (voiced by Zack Galifianakis) and his fellow fiendish rogues offers diminishing compensation for the fact that his solitary life on Wayne Island is getting pretty lonely. Encouraged by his faithful butler Alfred (Ralph Fiennes), he adopts the orphaned Dick Grayson (Michael Cera), while defending his track record against Gotham City’s new commissioner, Barbara Gordon (Rosario Dawson), who contends the lone vigilante approach is no longer getting the job done.
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. Instead, there’s an overriding, more-the-merrier philosophy that restlessly ventures beyond the DC universe, resulting in a frenetic pile-on that includes representatives from such Warner Bros. entities as The Wizard of Oz, Harry Potter and The Matrix. Performance-wise, Arnett certainly gives it his disaffected all, as does his fellow voice cast of thousands, which includes Jenny Slate as Harley Quinn, Channing Tatum as Superman, Conan O’Brien as The Riddler, Billy Dee Williams as Two-Face, Mariah Carey as Gotham’s Mayor McCaskill, Doug Benson as Bane and Apple’s Siri providing the calming tones of Batman’s trusty ‘Puter.
Australian animation company Animal Logic is again responsible for digitizing those millions of bricks, but this time the effect doesn’t seem to possess the same visual magic as before. Like the rest of The Lego Batman Movie, all the pieces are in place, but they just don’t have that same connective snap. Production companies: Warner Animation Group, RatPac-Dune Entertainment, LEGO System A/S, Lin Pictures/Lord Miller/Vertigo Entertainment Cast: Will Arnett, Zach Galifianakis, Michael Cera, Rosario Dawson, Ralph Fiennes, Jenny Slate, Conan O'Brien, Doug Benson, Billy Dee Williams, Zoe Kravitz, Eddie Izzard, Seth Green, Jemaine Clement, Ellie Kemper, Channing Tatum, Jonah Hill, Adam Devine, Hector Elizondo, Mariah Carey Screenwriters: Seth Grahame-Smith, Chris McKenna & Erik Sommers, Jared Stern & John Whittington Producers: Dan Lin, Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, Roy Lee Executive producers: Jill Wilfert, Matthew Ashton, Will Allegra, Brad Lewis, Zareh Nalbandian, Steven Mnuchin
Production designer: Grant Freckelton Editors: David Burrows, Matt Villa, John Venzon Casting director: Mary HidalgoThe Lego Batman MovieDirector - Chris McKayCast - Will Arnett, Michael Cera, Ralph Fiennes, Rosario Dawson, Zach Galifianakis, Mariah Carey, Channing Tatum, SiriRating - 4/5For a children’s movie – one that is essentially about plastic toys pounding each other into the Phantom Zone, one that somehow finds a way to make a quick joke at the expense of Mahatma Gandhi (God knows how they let it pass), and also proudly includes a Z-list villain named Condiment King (he shoots ketchup and mustard out of special guns, duh) – The Lego Batman Movie begins, and ends, on a pretty poignant note.It was supposed to be nothing more than a nerdy diversion, a gravelly-voiced filler starring Will Arnett before the main, Affleck-shaped attraction. But it turned out to be so much more. It isn’t without its flaws – there’s a substantial portion that lags like it’s carrying the weight of Tom Hardy’s Bane on its back – but for the most part, it’s a dizzyingly colourful, and surprisingly touching little movie that can chuck jokes at your face with the velocity (and precision) of a dozen batarangs.
Like its predecessor, the unlikeliest hit of 2014, The Lego Movie, this one too comes with the heavy baggage that makes it seem like a cold-hearted cash grab, a shameless attempt to sell more toys to unsuspecting kids. But there lies the challenge behind these movies – to create something, from nothing – hopefully, without having to sell your soul in the process. That they made something more than just a diverting, empty spectacle designed to distract children for a couple of hours, but a heartfelt film about friendship and family and loneliness and heroism is worth celebrating, isn’t it? Especially if you’re a Batman fan, which, basically, is this movie’s target demographic.The film opens with an excellent gag that pokes fun at The Dark Knight, which, to put it politely, is the best damn Batman film of all time – and perhaps one of the best films ever made. Nothing, it seems, is sacred in the glowing eyes of Lego Batman. In hindsight, that Gandhi joke should’ve been an indication.
To take potshots at its rival Marvel is easy, which, make no mistake, it does. Twice - and with all the subtlety of one of The Joker’s especially far-fetched schemes. But to make fun of family, that is where it gets tricky. On one hand, every Batman film that has ever been made, and every version of the character has ever been dreamt up, drawn, or put on film, is like a cousin to this one – From the hilariously camp ‘60s version, to Christopher Nolan’s monumental trilogy, to Zack Snyder’s brooding DCEU – Lego Batman, the crime fighting vigilante and heavy metal rapper that he is, holds no punches. And this, at its core, is what the movie is about. Who is Batman, and what does he mean to you. He is such an iconic character that the movie makes no attempt to invite novices to the party – it just assumes that you’d come prepared. For decades, his malleability has been harnessed into some truly terrific stories, and The Lego Batman Movie has found a familiar, yet exciting way to further his legacy, without ever biting the hand that feeds – or, in this case, the wing that shields.
Possibly, there has been no Batman movie that celebrates the character, every silly version of it, with the sort of passion that this one does. It finds Batman’s essence, beneath his leathery cowl - and also of his equally iconic nemesis, The Joker, played by The Hangover’s Zach Galifianakis here.At the end of the amazing 2011 Batman video game Arkham City, if you’re patient enough to sit through the credits, you can hear a song playing in the background. It’s a love song, sung by the Joker, for Batman. It’s a stunning closer to what has to be one of the best, most honest depictions of the Joker-Batman relationship ever – right up there with Grant Morrison’s Arkham Asylum comic and The Dark Knight. Now, we can add The Lego Batman Movie to this list.Its plot works on some surprisingly complex levels, seemingly playing to several different audiences at once. On one had, it is the sort of deep-cut fanboy fantasy that will likely alienate the best of us, filled with in-jokes and obscure references that are impossible to spot in just one viewing, and on the other, it works splendidly well as a delightful kids’ adventure.