The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part (2019)
Everything is more Awesome in Space!
The queue provides happiness in a life of plastic, it’s fantastic! Alright, joke that’s more in line with a Barbie tagline than a Lego tag line aside, this is what’s up in the list tonight. The first was fun, I assumed the second would be more of the same - if perhaps a little less due to potential lack of originality in the sense that the idea isn’t as new after the first one. If nothing else, I expect at least some form of entertainment out of it, so lets find out if everything is still awesome with a title so long I’m not going to bother saying it all: The Lego Movie 2.
So the plot here is a bit mixed bag. On the one hand, the novelty of having never seen anything like it is gone, so any moments where the movie tries to break the imagination-wall aren’t as stand out and somewhat expected. It’s not a big deal, but it does tint one’s glasses slightly regardless. Honestly, I’m also not quite as much a fan of the “real world” parts of the plot this time around - maybe it’s the morals of it being too expected or obvious, or perhaps I’m just not as impressed with some of the gags used - but in fairness to it all, I cared less about them in the first movie than I did the actual imagination parts anyways, so I guess in all honesty that just is in keeping with the trend. Still, the plot throws in a few twists - perhaps some foreseeable, perhaps some not - despite still running a very familiar formula of “let’s not believe so much in the main character, but have the main character come through and in doing so get a moral point across.” It facilitates colorful places, plenty of characters, jokes, and the injection of a lot of pop songs.
Of course, it’s not just canned radio fodder pop songs - they are still songs with the movie in mind, similar to the earworm of the first “Everything is Awesome.” We get a nice re-tread of that song in here, which works well as a song point because it does twist the song around for the situation and serves as a nice sort of comparison of sorts to the original - but we also get a “remix” version that’s nowhere quite as catchy, and even the song that constantly repeats “this song will get stuck in your head” mystically drops the ball in being as much of an earworm as that original “Everything” was. There’s a good five or six song segments in this one - so if you didn’t enjoy that aspect of the first or just in general you might find yourself a little less enthused about watching this one - and despite how they use some of them to tie in to the plot a bit, largely I’m not the target audience for this kind of music and it probably shows just in this paragraph alone. Still, if you did enjoy the music of the first, it’s relatively more of the same even if it’s not as stand out, so that’ll be a bonus for you.
Audio balance is well done as well, leaving plenty of things understandable even with the music pumping around in the background. The actor lines carry with them some form of emotion in most instances, even if some characters are practically nothing but garbled baby talk and screams - although those characters are in the minority. Most surprising to me is that at this point I’m convinced they could get Chris Pratt to reprise the character of Jack Burton in a Big Trouble in Little China remake - the guy has a mean Kurt Russel Impression, even if that’s not what hes trying to do (as I don’t know if it was). The other actors all do a wonderful job of deliveries and emoting as well, which is pretty good considering most this movie is looking at CG Lego people and creatures faffing about - without some decent deliveries the movie would feel a decent amount more lifeless.
Apocalyptic sewer babies.
The movie also has jokes - obviously. I’m not entirely sure why they chose all the references they did in this one though. As far as the plot path goes, the whole Mad Max style apocalypse town makes sense, both in imagination and as far as the characters go. On the flip side of that is the random Bruce Willis just bumping about in air vents for no real apparent reason outside of perhaps just getting Bruce Willis to do a voice cameo. As far as the actual jokes themselves, there is a good range of them on here. You get some of the physical humor stuff - which works to varying degrees due to the Lego-based content - as well as plenty of things aimed at different branches of the audience. Stepping on a Lego and it’s pain threshold, obviously aimed more at the adult audience, compared to a star spinning so much it pukes glitter for example. I’ll be honest, sometimes the dumbest most basic thing is what got the most honest laugh out of me - like the just mentioned star puking - but regardless it’s got a bit of everything from puns on up.
Of course, humor is hit and miss, and sometimes the references work into that. The main character running into a guy voiced by the same actor (Pratt) who just happens to have a spaceship full of raptors? One would expect me to hate that, given the Thor joke in MiB: International was probably my least favorite joke there, but here it actually works better. Part of that is because they do more things with it - it’s not just a quick one-off reference that feels like it lacks any reason of being there, as the raptors get subtitles and have their own little other moments for humor. Part of it comes from audio delivery, and some of it comes from the visual medium, but it is a large part of the movie either way which in it’s own right is sort of a joke, given that the movie is all under-laced with this “growing up and being darker and gritty” tones that somewhat constantly undermined by the dumb and amusing humor - which also ends up being incredibly truthful to how life generally works.
Arguably the largest part of the movie is the effects work though. I mean, we are talking about Lego figures and pieces coming to life (as well as plenty of things), usually through gloriously plastic looking CG. Occasionally though, we get a random external effects gag - like cutouts on strings or real-world Lego dudes bashing together. It’s nice to have the variety, but in all honesty most the spectacle is in the imagination space, which expands to a lot of outerspace and different worlds and the likes this time around. It all looks real good, and occasionally your eyes will notice fine little details, like strings holding up stars. A nice little detail is also the “building blue” call outs, with their floating part numbers in some of the building segments. If you loved how the first looked, this one doesn’t cheap that out, and they did a great job with it.
Get ready to be spaced.
The easiest way to sum this up would be if you enjoyed the first, you’ll like this one. It doesn’t have to much completely new to offer, so some might be a little bit less enthused by this as opposed to the first, but it’s largely a movie of the same breed. Effects are good and the voice actors do a fine job. The songs are upbeat pop again, but not nearly as much an earworm as you’d find in the first. If you haven’t watched the first, you’d be better off watching that first (this is a sequel after all), but I imagine this is a fine family rental for most people that could be enjoyed.