Random Review: Lego Movie

I'll come right out and say I was underwhelmed. Now I hear people saying that I "don't understand the experience of legos" or "never had a childhood." That's fine, I guess, because I honestly don't care. I've never really played with legos but I have played with toys and I loved my childhood. I loved "Toy Story" and the sequels. I understand the appeal of nostalgia and there is some merit to approaching the movie in a nostalgic fashion. But this movie was just forgettable and I didn't really care too much for what it had to say at the end. It's fine if you like it but I just didn't get the same kick out of it everyone seems to have.


First of all, I'd like to address the aspect that it was pretty forgettable. The jokes that were made seemed to be a bunch of pop culture jokes and the only jokes I actually laughed at were the more subtle ones. Everything was fast-paced and trying to absorb every environment, every set design was hard. Nothing ever came out to me since the entire movie just felt like a jumble trying to make me entertained with bright visuals and cheap laughs. The reason why I like movies like "Toy Story 3" is that it is genuinely funny in some areas but when it is serious it takes itself seriously. "Toy Story 3" took things slow and allowed every single area or joke sink in. And the film was also very nostalgic and called back to childhood while the ending to "The Lego Movie" was aberrant and still trying to squeeze in amusement. I cried at the ending of "Toy Story 3" while I just stared blankly at the ending of this film. The entire idea doesn't resonate with me since I had no reason to actually feel for these last minute live-action characters. After just being amused and entertained, I don't believe the movie should have a last minute "feels" section. Everyone saw it coming but it really didn't do it for me since the last segment was...off.

Anyways, I'll try to explain why I didn't like the ending. First of all, why did the businessman make these large models using legos? Why did he keep the kid away from the sets? Yeah there is some sentimental feeling attached with the businessman but why would he keep these huge lego sets and expect the kid to follow his directions? What's weirder is that the businessman actually makes up with the kid. Why? The moral is so weird at the end too. So everyone is special? If everyone is special, that means nobody is special. Everyone can't be special if the same level of uniqueness exists for everyone. These points are more points of nitpicking yet I can't help but feel the ending is phony for trying to pull off this stupid idea that it all connects to real life. In the end, it still tries to be funny and serious. The problem with that is that the message doesn't hit home and the jokes seem a little awkward in light of the emotional tone. The ending really didn't had no place since it was kind of like a reverse "Toy Story 3" in a way.

The beginning was also boring. Seeing as how I'd already heard the commercials a lot, the beginning does absolutely nothing to add anything. It was just there to establish the communist air and how normal the protagonist was. It was only when they actually escaped from the world that things started to pick up. I couldn't care for anything until then and the movie does nothing to make things interesting. So we just had exposition dump until something interesting happened. Then we were treated to the development where jokes, pop culture, and flashy stuff could ensue. Again, not much point since it just established more stereotypical characters and had pointless filler with flashy action. Stuff happened that didn't really matter.

Then the falling action resulted in the whole failure arc and the attempt to make things right again. I know a lot of you can justify the pop culture and flashy action for being part of a kid's imagination but I honestly don't think a kid would have such a cohesive narrative riddled with amusing dialogue. Moving on, we still have to suffer through the stuff about the businessman who is an evil guy and the kid who is harmless. Now we have the reason why everyone likes the movie but like I said earlier, it really didn't matter to me much. The whole movie was rushed way too much for this non-sequitur segment to actually have impact as many plot holes become apparent once you realize that just a kid is pulling the strings.

Some things I did like were the animation but the whole action was too rushed for me to appreciate the inventive ways they incorporated the legos into the environment. Morgan Freeman was really awesome but even he couldn't save this film. Also unikitty was a really stupid concept. I didn't care for the "Awesome" song which became grating after it was put into everywhere in the film. Overall, while I didn't care for this movie, I did get some laughs and had some fun throughout all of this. I still think it's a waste of money though.

Final Rating: 6/10

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why is Art Important?

Image
3 minutes and 46 seconds into the "Bad and Boujee" music video, there exist 4 golden seconds that stand as a pillar of humanity. Audiophiles and casual listeners that had been fidgeting in their seats now sit erect with eyes closed and a hand pressed softly on their right headphone. 4 seconds. Someone in the world listens raptly to these words for the first time and whether they are a child in Somalia or a businessman in Switzerland, they can't help but feel that all artistic endeavours in history have been for naught as nothing has had the penetrating impact that these 4 seconds have. 4 seconds. At every church there's always at least one boy who scrambles furiously up the steps, ready to beg the pastor that the masterful artist Lil Uzi Vert be canonized as a saint with his every word added to the new Uziment section of the Bible. 4 seconds.
Read more

Time Doesn't Exist

Image
I'd like to make one thing clear first of all. I consider that this world has two forms of time. The first form of time is what us humans use most of the time. This time involves years, eons, hours, months, and all the quantifiable forms of time. The second form of time is abstract. This is the fourth dimension that perceives different events happening at a different time. Without further ado, let's see why I believe the quantifiable time does not exist. Time is usually portrayed as an abstract idea. You can't really describe how time functions. Most people assume that time is linear progression. With this view you see timelines that details each event. If that were so, then how come time is so variable? How come time can be so intangible in our world? The time we use is time we apply to our surroundings is best seen by years, minutes, hours, and months. But these numbers can't be used to define time in our universe. In fact, a year is actually 365 days, 5
Read more

Random Review: Pokemon X & Y

Image
After waiting about a year from the release of Black and White 2, we get another game that has a weirder title. According to the developer of this game, he imagined it as a coordinate plane that signified a path or destiny and how both the X- and Y-axis intersect at one point. It's a nice explanation but I'd rather imagine it as sex chromosomes but I just prefer that to make fun of girls who get Y. Anyways, these games added a lot of features that excited Pokemon fans and they are generally favored by everybody. Let's begin by looking at the new stuff. The biggest changes were the fairy type and the mega-evolutions. The fairy type was created to counter dragons and are generally the new over-powered type that everyone seems to use. Mega-evolutions are evolutions within a battle to a pokemon. Mega-evolutions always mystified me since I felt that they should've just went balls to the walls and created the elusive fourth evolution but Nintendo evidently loves its r
Read more