The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part (2019)

“Everything can still be awesome!”

Yeah, I’m not exactly going to give this film a slapping. Let’s say right now that I loved the first film and that this is pretty much 140 extra minutes of the same stuff and the same quality. Basically, it’s a bit good. Oh, and Merry Christmas and all that. This feels a suitable film for today.

Anyway, we start with the Duplo invasion from last film’s cliffhanger (I love the toddler voices!) leading five years later to everything having gone a bit Mad Max except, of course, for Emmett, who is his old self. There follows a clever and very meta plot which partly represents a bit of sibling rivalry in another dimension and partly shows us how uncool it is to be overly grimdark and antiheroic. It’s a nice moral, although I’m not sure I approve of the revelation towards the end that cutesy chart pop is not evil: I think you’ll find it’s evil incarnate. It’s not rock ‘n’ roll that’s the Devil’s music, it’s manufactured pop.

Throughout all this we get far too many self-referential and metatextual moments to recount, but the best by far is Queen Watevra Wa’Nabi doing her song about how she’s Totally Not Evil. Plus we get sooo many pop culture references and more taking the piss out of Green Lantern. This is always a good thing. And Will Arnett is scarily close to being my fave Batman. Plus we get grim, dinosaur loving future Emmett with his timey-wimeyness and stubble.

Another superb film. Unbelievable, super cool, outrageous and amazing.

The Lego Batman Movie (2017)

"What is the password?"

"Iron Man sucks!"

It's New Year's Eve, the little one is in bed, and it's my last night of freedom before a month of intense real life stuff that is likely to preclude pretty much any blog stuff happening between now and 30th/31st January because of some pretty intense real life stuff. Be reassured, though; normal blogging frequency will be resumed. Meanwhile, I'll do this last blog post of 2017 as several pints of Boddingtons go down.

This movie is awesome, the kind of knowing but very silly and very meta film that the Batman mythos was just crying out for. I knew it was going to be fun as soon as the Batman monologue over the opening titles started, and I knew it was going to be awesome as soon as the bloke started singing "Nothing bad ever happens to me".

I love the deliberate usage of all of Batman's rogues gallery from all media, including Egghead, Killer Moth, King Tut, Gentleman Ghost, Crazy Quilt and, er, Condiment King. Even better, there's a Chief O'Hara. This film has a huge amount of knowing fun with the whole mythos, including jokes about how Batman has been fighting crime in Gotham City for 78 years.

Things enter an extra level of awesome, though, once the Joker brings back his mates from the Phantom Zone including Godzilla, King Kong, Sauron, Voldemort, the Wicked Witch of the West and various other big bads that Warner Bros has the right to. And, er, certain nameless pepperpots that it blatantly doesn't. And the running romcom joke about the relationship between Batman and the Joker is genuinely funny. The most fun film of 2017 so far, without a doubt.

The Lego Movie (2014)

"Wiping your bum with a hook for a hand is really hard.."

This is the perfect Lego movie. Not only does the all-Lego animation look great (even the water in Emmett's shower is Lego!) but the message is perfect and splendidly anti-conformist: don't just follow the instructions- build whatever the hell you like. But preferably spaceships.

This being a Warner Bros films we get cameos from Star Wars characters (the Millennium Falcon gets gobbled up by that asteroid beast from The Empire Strikes Back) and DC characters are available for a bit of mickey taking, especially Green Lantern whose film recently flopped.

The baddie, President Business, as well as being improperly linked to business for a politician (ooh, but of politics there), has a secret agenda to glue everyone together as per the instructions for all eternity, a fate worse than death. Against him are a random assortment of "master builders" including Batman(!), a very sensible spaceman who wants to build spaceships, quite sensibly, and whose family has the crack at the bottom that Lego spacemen always have.

There's also Vetruvius, half Gandalf and half Obi Wan Kenovi who, in the funniest scene, comes back as a ghost for some very serious advice for Emmett and then flies away with a "woo-oo"!

I loved this film, and I don't even like Will Ferrell. It's probably my favourite animated movie of recent years and definitely a must-see.

Despicable Me (2010)

 "Are these beds made out of bombs?"

"Yes, but they are very old and highly unlikely to blow up."

I love Minions. Probably my favourite t-shirt is one with Minions and the TARDIS on it. I am writing this on a smartphone with a Minion cover. They are now ubiquitous, and seem to have much outgrown the film from which they sprung.

Still, this is a modern family Pixar-style animation film like any other and, as expected, while it has both stuff for the kiddies and metatextual stuff for the grown-ups, it is weighted much more towards the latter. It is a perfect concept for a film; a comedy about a supervillain. And Steve Carrell is rather good as Gru, our suburban Dr Evil who is getting a little old, past his best and threatened by younger supervillains.

The main thread of the film- our evil baddie learning to be a big softie as he develops paternal feelings for three little girls he adopts- could easily have been overly soppy, but the tone remains sufficiently silly for this not to happen. It's a very funny film, mashing mundane domesticity with over-the-top supervillainy to great effect.

I love the whole riff on the Bank of Evil- there is, of course, no other sort, and that's part of the subtext of this post-crash film. I also, of course, love any scene involving Vector. 

It's a light and fluffy film, if full of lots of clever little jokes, and it's enormous gun to watch. Let's make one thing clear, though: I did not cry. No. Definitely not.