The LEGO Movie is pure fun. In this world of plastic building blocks, cheerful but bland everyman Emmett (voiced by Chris Pratt) meets Master Builder Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks), gains powers and joins a rag-tag superhero team that includes an old sage (Morgan Freeman), Batman (Will Arnett) and a twisted cat, Unikitty (Alison Brie). Together, they battle wealthy bad guy Lord Business (Will Ferrell) who threatens everybody and everything in the LEGO universe with a super-weapon called The Kragle.
Simply put, the visuals are dazzling, even on home theatre. The definition is sharp and the colours are crisp, particularly on Blu-ray; environments like a rolling sea are breathtaking to see animated in LEGO. Storywise, there's a good balance of self-deprecating laughs (none of Emmett's acquaintances remember him well) and action. This is no shallow visual exercise.
This Blu-ray/DVD package is generous with bonus features. The audio commentary with directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller with stars Pratt, Arnett and Brie is chatty and fun, though could have offered more insight into the making of the film.
The featurettes, "Bringing LEGO to Life" and "Stories from the Story Team" (totalling 17 minutes) offer a light history of the film's development and production, but nothing substantial. The 12-minute "See It, Build It!" shows kids how to build two simple models from the film. There are four minutes of homemade animated clips from LEGO fans that were selected from a contest. About six minutes of outtakes and deleted scenes are cute, though the film's first animation test is a little more interesting. The movie's obnoxious theme song, "Everything Is Awesome," is presented as a karaoke sing-a-long. Tidbits include four minutes of trailers and promo spots, plus a short stop-motion music video featuring Batman.
Sadly, the bonus features don't reveal much about the real history of this movie. We don't get a true sense of the long, long animation process and how a big toy company made a movie with a major Hollywood studio. The extras are breezy. But that shortcoming won't stand in the way of a fun ride.
(Warner)Simply put, the visuals are dazzling, even on home theatre. The definition is sharp and the colours are crisp, particularly on Blu-ray; environments like a rolling sea are breathtaking to see animated in LEGO. Storywise, there's a good balance of self-deprecating laughs (none of Emmett's acquaintances remember him well) and action. This is no shallow visual exercise.
This Blu-ray/DVD package is generous with bonus features. The audio commentary with directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller with stars Pratt, Arnett and Brie is chatty and fun, though could have offered more insight into the making of the film.
The featurettes, "Bringing LEGO to Life" and "Stories from the Story Team" (totalling 17 minutes) offer a light history of the film's development and production, but nothing substantial. The 12-minute "See It, Build It!" shows kids how to build two simple models from the film. There are four minutes of homemade animated clips from LEGO fans that were selected from a contest. About six minutes of outtakes and deleted scenes are cute, though the film's first animation test is a little more interesting. The movie's obnoxious theme song, "Everything Is Awesome," is presented as a karaoke sing-a-long. Tidbits include four minutes of trailers and promo spots, plus a short stop-motion music video featuring Batman.
Sadly, the bonus features don't reveal much about the real history of this movie. We don't get a true sense of the long, long animation process and how a big toy company made a movie with a major Hollywood studio. The extras are breezy. But that shortcoming won't stand in the way of a fun ride.
