The Lego Batman Movie

My daughter has read a lot of Batman comics and she loved the film...and much of it was because she saw all sorts of inside jokes that the rest of us might miss. Fortunately, you do NOT need to be a Batmaniac in order to enjoy the movie, as a dopey old man like myself still got a lot out of the film. As for me, I was thrilled to see a Batman Lego movie, as in "The Lego Movie" this character was my favorite. Here, he's back...as broody and aloof as ever.

The plot is pretty simple. The Joker is angry that Batman doesn't care about him nor does he see him as his personal nemesis. So, the Joker is out to hurt Batman by unleashing all sorts of wicked creatures on Gotham City. As for Batman, the self-centered jerk superhero learns to rely on others...starting with Dick Grayson, Barbara Gordon and Alfred.

This is pretty much what you'd expect from the film...one that kids will no doubt enjoy and adults will enjoy or at least tolerate. To me, the best kids films are the ones with wide appeal....and it's hard to imagine anyone not liking this cute film.

Let's be honest for a second and agree that The Lego Movie should never have worked. On paper, it's a horrible idea. Yet, Phil Lord and Chris Miller did what they always do - take a strange and unwieldy idea and turn it into something great. Including Batman in The Lego Movie seemed a bizarre choice, but the Will Arnett voiced character was a highlight for pretty much everyone who watched it and it didn't take long until a spin off was announced. With Lord and Miller only serving as producers this time, the satisfaction of The Lego Movie wore off and we were all sceptical about whether the spin off was a good idea. It turns out that, just like last time, we never needed to worry at all.

When he isn't fighting crime as masked vigilante Batman, Bruce Wayne (Arnett) lives in recluse in his mansion with his butler Alfred (Ralph Fiennes). His arch nemesis, the Joker (Zach Galifianakis), rallies together an endless group of villains to attempt to rid Gotham City of the Batman, all while new Police Chief Barbara Gordon (Rosario Dawson) proposes that Batman abandon his solo nature and work alongside the law enforcement. After a misunderstanding, Wayne also accidentally adopts local orphan Dick Grayson (Michael Cera), who he reluctantly takes on as a protégé. Eventually, it is down to Batman, Grayson, Gordon and Alfred to battle the Joker and save Gotham City.

If it sounds kind of mental, it's because it is. If you thought The Lego Movie was high octane and relied on energy, it pales in comparison to The Lego Batman Movie. But, once again, here we have a film that is not only zany and energetic but also consistently funny, mindbogglingly inventive, nimbly structured and genuinely touching. While it loses the surprise effect that made The Lego Movie such a treat and its conclusion doesn't rival the sudden foray into live action that made its parent film so poignant, Lego Batman remains a highly enjoyable film that puts a smile on your face from beginning to end.

I would comfortably say that this is a funnier film than The Lego Movie. The jokes come thick and fast, a large percentage of the film is more than prepared to drop at least three jokes per minute and they all land. There are digs at other recent Batman stories - most notably Suicide Squad and Batman v Superman, obviously - and multiple other references to other films, but Lego Batman even finds room for more adult humour (how the number plate on Bruce Wayne's car made it into the final cut is hilariously baffling to me) and countless sight gags. The faux stop motion animation style carves the way for some brilliant little visual flourishes that add depth to the film's comedy - it isn't just content to run one joke into the ground, rather it consistently finds new comedic territory and makes every joke its own.

The way Lego Batman even lands on something genuinely moving in its finale is even more impressive. You could make a case for the film's central theme being a bit obvious when it comes to Batman - the whole film is pegged around isolation and loneliness and how you combat that to form a human relationship of any kind - but it handles it excellently. It's written smartly enough to simultaneously act as a life lesson for small kids as well as a powerful sentiment to older viewers. The fact that it has a better grasp of Batman as a character than Batman v Superman did isn't exactly surprising, but what is surprising is just how committed to this theme the film really is.

It doesn't just form it around Batman. Young Dick Grayson feels the same emotional distance, Barbara Gordon only wants to do well in her first challenge as the new Police Chief, Alfred wants to help his adoptive son refocus his life and even the Joker just wants to comfortably know that he really is Batman's arch nemesis. It all sounds silly, and of course it is, but Lego Batman excels whenever it combines the silly and the thoughtful. Thankfully, that's most of its run time. The voice acting is faultless all round, too. Arnett remains the obvious highlight for too many reasons than can be explained, but Michael Cera, Ralph Fiennes, Rosario Dawson, Jenny Slate, and Channing Tatum are all delightful as well.

Lego Batman's biggest triumph, though? It perfectly reminds us that the concept of a Lego Movie shouldn't put us off anymore. There have been weirder franchises in cinematic history, and while this sounded like one big cash grab from the word go, everything we have seen in this Universe so far has been terrific. Lego Batman loses that surprise element because about ten minutes into the film you stop worrying, you just know you're going to have a blast. I mean, how could you not? The less said about a plethora of other characters who appear in the film's second half, the better - but it's hilarious and unique and wonderful all at once. If just one film drops in 2017 that's more fun than this, what a year it will be.

TO SUMMARISE: Dazzlingly inventive and unrelentingly funny, The Lego Batman Movie adds another enjoyable and surprisingly moving entry to the ever impressive Lego Movie franchise.

www.morrismovies.co.uk

I wasn't prepared to like this. Still, all the sight gags, the references to past super-hero characters, grow on you. There are lots of funny lines and Batman is a total, self serving jerk. The business about Robin being adopted is a bit much. But the world created with the popular plastic toys is remarkable. It's almost overkill. I think I may watch it again where I can stop and check out some of what they were doing. I think this franchise is doing much better than I imagined it would.

I hope I don't get sick of these lego movies cuz they are so far really fun to watch. There was a lot going on in this movie.

First off the graphics are amazing so I ended up getting a little distracted by checking out details here and there instead of focusing on the action.

The characters are funny and in a lot of cases self deprecating. The humor is pretty good, there might be some of it that goes over younger viewers heads but it doesn't matter since there is so much happening all the time that even if a joke doesn't land it's onto the next scene anyway.

I would recommend this one to anyone who likes lego movies or even Batman fans.

It's odd that this would be the movie that takes a look back at 78 years of batman and says... yeah it's silly, LET'S CELEBRATE IT ALL!!!

I actually thought some of the characters in this movie were just a joke but nope, there really was a condiment king in the batman comics that walked around with a ketchup and mustard guns, there was a character called "the Eraser" that looked like a pencil!

Best of all was the most iconic villain from batman, the Joker! Just replace the word "hate" with "love" and it's a rom-com between the two with batman refusing to commit and Joker feeling like his "hate" was only one sided and he deserves better, Hilarious!!!

They actually reference all of batman from the silly TV show of the 60's, the bam and kapow that pop up in the comics when he hits someone, his dark night trilogy, you name it it's there... and sometimes they'd even play some footage!

If you know anything, really anything at all about batman then I'd recommend you watch this movie. age doesn't matter. The one flaw I could think of was how fast this was going with the jokes, at times I wish it would slow down because another one comes in before I was even done laughing at the previous joke.

10/10 and yay for parody not being dead!