Charlie Day's Space Guy Character Showcased In Latest LEGO Movie Poster One of the things we’re already appreciating about The LEGO Movie ahead of the film’s February release — exactly one month ahead, to be exact — is the attention to detail demonstrated in the design of the characters. Take Benny, for example, since Charlie Day’s character has been showcased in the latest poster in all his glorious spaceyness. When the first trailer released, he was introduced to us as "1980-something space guy," which puts this character in the mid-twenties to mid-thirties age range and suggests that, as a LEGO, he’d probably be showing a bit of wear and tear. Sure enough, you can see little nicks and scratches around the front of his space helmet. The bottom’s a little bit bent, his eye’s are the tiniest bit faded around the edges and he’s got a couple scratches on the right side of his forehead. Benny’s clearly a LEGO that’s been around the toy box, outliving other more fleetingly faddish LEGO that have come and gone between 1980-something and now.
Ok, in truth, I have no idea if there’s any kind of link between the characters of The LEGO Movie and played-with LEGO, in somewhat similar fashion to how the Toy Story characters are actual toys, self-aware and all.. Regardless, I like the slight datedness of Benny’s appearance, given his rather generic design, particularly by comparison to the more polished looking faces of Superman and Batman. Maybe it’s the fact that those characters are regularly updated in popular culture, whereas the "1980-something space guy" has one specific era to call his own. I’m probably overthinking this. I just love the details, nicks, scratches and all. He strikes me as the perfect example of LEGO nostalgia. The new poster landed over on the LEGO Movie Facebook page, which has been pretty steadily updated and likely will continue to be, now that we’re coming up on the release of the film. As mentioned, Benny the space guy is voiced by the great Charlie Day, more often seen and heard in film and television (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Pacific Rim, Horrible Bosses).
But he’s no novice at voice-work either, having voiced the role of Art in Monster’s University. You can catch his character Art in the second half of this clip: The recently released TV Spot gives us a goofy look at Benny, who thinks spaceships are awesome… So many facial expressions in just one quick snippet… The LEGO Movie arrives in theaters February 7. Blended From Around The WebBURBANK, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Audience enthusiasm continues to build for “The LEGO® Batman Movie,” pushing the latest LEGO animated adventure to $202 million in global box office after just two weeks in release. The announcement was made today by Sue Kroll, President of Worldwide Marketing and Distribution, Warner Bros. Pictures. Scoring the biggest box office opening of 2017, the new film from director Chris McKay and the team behind the 2014 blockbuster “The LEGO Movie” took the top spot in its first weekend in North America, and registered an A- Cinemascore.
It ranked first again in its second weekend, and has so far earned over $118 million on the domestic front. It simultaneously made a robust debut in day-and-date engagements in 60 markets across Europe, Asia and Latin America. The film has maintained the number one spot in the UK since its opening, and has continued to hold strong overseas for an international cume of $84 million, to date. Just as much a hit with critics as with fans, “The LEGO Batman Movie” is Certified Fresh at 91% on Rotten Tomatoes. The film will continue its international run in additional territories yet to open, including Japan, China, Australia and New Zealand. In making the announcement, Kroll said, “We are proud and happy to mark another resounding success for our LEGO film franchise. Congratulations to our partners at the LEGO Group, to director Chris McKay and to the multitude of talented individuals who made this film such an extraordinary cinema experience for the whole family.”
In the irreverent spirit of fun that made “The LEGO Movie” a worldwide phenomenon, the self-described leading man of that ensemble – LEGO Batman – stars in his own big-screen adventure. “The LEGO Batman Movie” stars Will Arnett, Zach Galifianakis, Michael Cera, Rosario Dawson and Ralph Fiennes. Directed by Chris McKay, it is produced by Dan Lin, Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, and Roy Lee. The executive producers are Jill Wilfert, Matthew Ashton, Will Allegra and Brad Lewis. The screenplay is by Seth Grahame-Smith and Chris McKenna & Erik Sommers and Jared Stern & John Whittington; story by Seth Grahame-Smith, based on LEGO Construction Toys and based on characters from DC. Batman is created by Bob Kane with Bill Finger; Superman is created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. From Warner Bros. Pictures and Warner Animation Group, in association with LEGO System A/S, a Lin Pictures/Lord Miller/Vertigo Entertainment production, “The LEGO Batman Movie” will be distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company.
It will play in theaters in 3D, 2D and IMAX. This film is rated PG for rude humor and some action. When I was young I lacked the patience and fine-motor skills to do much with Lego, but I spent a lot of time with friends whose bedrooms and basements bristled with elaborate, snapped-together spaceships and skyscrapers. There was always something of a gap between the care and imagination that went into the constructions and what you did with them after the building was done. Those intricate structures became, like just about everything else, stages for car crashes and action-figure duels. Now and then there would be a pause for an argument about who was the bad guy and what the rules were, and then the battle would resume until it was time for a snack. “The Lego Movie” captures both the delight and the frustration of this kind of play. The visual environment created by the filmmakers (Phil Lord and Christopher Miller of “21 Jump Street” wrote and directed; the animation is by Animal Logic) hums with wit and imagination.
Although the images are computer generated, they move, for the most part, according to the pleasingly herky-jerky logic of hand-guided stop-motion. You are always aware that you are looking at a world of interlocking plastic blocks, an illusion enhanced in the 3-D version of the film. Smoke, sand and water are all made out of Lego, as are high-rise cities, pirate ships, mountains and a zone of free-form fantasy called Cloud Cuckoo Land.The story is a busy, slapdash contraption designed above all to satisfy the imperatives of big-budget family entertainment. There are fiery chases and hectic brawls, and a crowd of famous voices simultaneously enacting and lampooning the standard cartoon-quest narrative of heroic self-discovery. Pop-culture jokes ricochet off the heads of younger viewers to tickle the world-weary adults in the audience, with just enough sentimental goo applied at the end to unite the generations. Parents will dab their eyes while the kids roll theirs. The hero is a generic figurine named Emmet (Chris Pratt), who lives in a smiling conformist dystopia where the population follows the instruction manual, watches the same dumb television shows and listens to a peppy pop song (by Tegan and Sara) about how “Everything Is Awesome.”
Not unlike reality, you might say, and there are a few mild, and mildly hypocritical, satirical darts thrown at the mind-controlling tendencies of the corporate media-marketing-entertainment complex.There is also a stew of kiddie-action elements: an ancient prophecy involving a wise wizard (Morgan Freeman) and a scheming supervillain (Will Ferrell); a plucky rebel (Elizabeth Banks) who recruits the baffled Emmet into the resistance; and a whole lot of chases and fights interspersed with jokes. Many of those also provide moments of whimsical brand extension, celebrations of the synergy embedded in the film’s title. Movies are one of the vehicles that bring children into the universe of modern entertainment, a place where merchandising, franchised intellectual property and archetypal narrative flow together endlessly. Lego is another such delivery system, where you can play with cowboys, ponies, Batman, Harry Potter and the whole “Star Wars” crew. Binding “The Lego Movie” together is a “Matrix”-like conceit that turns the whole thing into an allegory about the nature of creativity and the meaning of amusement.