The LEGO Batman Movie

***1/2

Reviewed by: Angus Wolfe Murray

The Lego Batman Movie
"In crash bang lingo this would be dubbed explosivimo"

Whoever thought of making a movie out of LEGO bits and bobs should be applauded and given a raise. The first outing, imaginatively called The LEGO Movie, worked wonders because of a cool script and hilarious characters. Also, the CGI animators had permission to wreck the joint. Totally aweforsome!!

The sequel introduces the batty man, the jokester and the whole nine yards - magic/super/hero/villains in primary colours, voiced by a team of audio A-listers. What could possibly go tits up?

Copy picture

There's a war going on between the script soldiers and the CGI animeisters. The result goes hay and a little bit wired - Too Much Too Fast. Chaos reigns and when this happens you wait for the quieter moments to get a finger on the plot.

Batman works alone. He wears black. He doesn't do ships ("as in relationships"). He's a loner and he likes it that way. He gets off on defending Gotham City as the vigilante go-to-guy, the reclusive multimillionaire who doesn't do interviews or rom-coms. Anything remotely touchy feely is off limits and his greatest fear "is being part of a family again." His password is "ironmansucks".

If he's an emotional screw up, check out The Joker. He has a face like a six-year-old's art project. He lives in a bad place with all the enemies of decency, obsessed with The Bat. He doesn't want the dude dead. He wants him to admit that he hates The J more than any of the other deranged dressers. Weird, or what?

If it was just these two with a handful of support staff, such as Arthur, the butt of all butlers, the film would have top billing at Comedy Central. It's everyone else that gets in the way - everyone and everything. Whatever the storyboarders were popping during the creative process it should be on a list of banned substances.

In crash bang lingo this would be dubbed explosivimo, which is another way of saying a wipe out. The sad part is that so many of the one-liners are solid and don't deserve to be exterminated by these runaway visuals.

Reviewed on: 09 Feb 2017
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The LEGO Batman Movie packshot
Batman takes on The Joker and just about every other super (weird) villain in Legoland's latest animated comic extravaganza, otherwise dubbed product placement
Amazon link

Director: Chris McKay

Writer: Seth Grahame-Smith, Chris McKenna, Erik Sommers, Jared Stern, John Whittington

Starring: voices of Will Arnett, Zach Galifianakis, Rosario Dawson, Michael Cera, Ralph Fiennes, Channing Tatum, Zoë Kravitz, Jonah Hill, Seth Green, Jenny Slate, Adam Devine

Year: 2017

Runtime: 104 minutes

BBFC: U - Universal

Country: US, Denmark

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