The LEGO Batman Movie
Directed by: Chris McKay
Written by: Seth Grahame-Smith and Chris McKenna & Erik Somme and Jared Stern & John Whittington
Voices by: Will Arnett, Ralph Fiennes, Michael Cera, Rosario Dawson, Zach Galifianakis, Ellie Kemper, Eddie Izzard, Jemaine Clement, Jenny Slate, Mariah Carey, Seth Green, Channing Tatum, Doug Benson, Zoë Kravitz, Billy Dee Williams, Kate Micucci, Jonah Hill, Adam Devine, Jason Mantzoukas, Riki Lindhome, Conan O'Brien
Animation/Action/Adventure - 104 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 6 Feb 2017
Written by: Seth Grahame-Smith and Chris McKenna & Erik Somme and Jared Stern & John Whittington
Voices by: Will Arnett, Ralph Fiennes, Michael Cera, Rosario Dawson, Zach Galifianakis, Ellie Kemper, Eddie Izzard, Jemaine Clement, Jenny Slate, Mariah Carey, Seth Green, Channing Tatum, Doug Benson, Zoë Kravitz, Billy Dee Williams, Kate Micucci, Jonah Hill, Adam Devine, Jason Mantzoukas, Riki Lindhome, Conan O'Brien
Animation/Action/Adventure - 104 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 6 Feb 2017
2014’s The LEGO Movie was a near perfect animated film and one of the best films of that year. Will Arnett’s gravel-voiced LEGO Batman was a memorable supporting character and an easy enough spin-off project for Warner Bros. Hiring first time feature director Chris McKay, a Robot Chicken veteran, was a smart move based on the one-liner joke avalanche and visual sight gags. The voiceover cast may also be the deepest group of A-listers ever assembled; even characters with hardly any lines are voiced by the likes of Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill. However, The LEGO Batman Movie comes off as an amusing side project and nothing more. It neither matches the virtuoso heights of its LEGO big brother and emphasizes the feeling everyone in the audience shares of Batman fatigue.
I almost made The LEGO Batman Movie my son’s first film. I’m happy I chose to wait a bit for a few reasons. This movie is loud. Screened in an IMAX theater, the explosions and music may be a bit too much for the real little ones. Mercifully, Chris McKay and the suits gave us a 2D option to escape the unnecessary third dimension I hope none of you out there wastes extra money on. Furthermore, not only does my son have no clue who Batman is, but he wouldn’t have understood any of the jokes. There are relentless references to all the other Batman films all the way back to Adam West’s goofy-looking shark repellent version. The LEGO Batman Movie is for adults. Sure, all the kids in the theater will smile at the jumbled action scenes and silly jokes about Robin, but only the adults will appreciate the nostalgia humor.
I almost made The LEGO Batman Movie my son’s first film. I’m happy I chose to wait a bit for a few reasons. This movie is loud. Screened in an IMAX theater, the explosions and music may be a bit too much for the real little ones. Mercifully, Chris McKay and the suits gave us a 2D option to escape the unnecessary third dimension I hope none of you out there wastes extra money on. Furthermore, not only does my son have no clue who Batman is, but he wouldn’t have understood any of the jokes. There are relentless references to all the other Batman films all the way back to Adam West’s goofy-looking shark repellent version. The LEGO Batman Movie is for adults. Sure, all the kids in the theater will smile at the jumbled action scenes and silly jokes about Robin, but only the adults will appreciate the nostalgia humor.
While The LEGO Batman Movie has its fair share of incomprehensible action sequences full of labyrinthine lego aircraft and vehicles, the main story is psychological. Batman (Arnett, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows) is a narcissistic loner who is afraid to form attachments because his parents were murdered. His defense mechanism is to cut others out lest his feelings get hurt again. After once again saving Gotham City from The Joker and his ever-expanding gaggle of goons, Batman will heat up a microwave dinner and watch the end of Jerry Maguire by himself in Wayne Manor which is the only building on Wayne Island.
The Joker (Zach Galifianakis, Birdman), shocked that Batman could be so callous and not label him as his arch-enemy, gets his feelings hurt and turns himself into the authorities. Watching The Joker’s face as Batman explains he likes to fight other villains too and how they must have an open relationship like that is perhaps the film’s highlight. The three too many scenes it takes for Batman to finally realize he needs friends and family to help fight bad guys and protect Gotham are enough to jog your memory that audiences need a longer break in between Bruce Wayne psychoanalytic films.
Alfred the butler (Ralph Fiennes, Kubo and the Two Strings), reading up on how to raise your spoiled child, parental locks Batman’s favorite toys and forces a make-shift family onto him including a ready to please orphan, Robin (Michael Cera, This Is the End), and the new Police Commissioner, Barbara Gordon (Rosario Dawson, Ratchet & Clank). Robin, Barbara, and Alfred spend a good hour trying to convince Batman to open up and accept new people into his life, but by the time he finally achieves enlightenment, my patience meter had just about hit capacity. Luckily, the couple dozen screenwriters attached to the script stuffed in some fresher moments with the villains.
Everybody is here, both from the DC Batman world, and every other comic/film world. There is Bane, Catwoman, Penguin, and then we get Voldemort, Sauron, King Kong, and Jaws the shark. The script shows it had too many writers. There are so many jokes, both visual and spoken, you must pick and choose what you’re going to pick up on. During the initial action salvo to open the film, everything flies at the audience so fast, it’s too fast. The LEGO fireball explosions and intricate vehicles Batman hops in and out of are impossible to keep track of and the characters they introduce, about three every second, are impossible to monitor.
Moving past Batman’s inner demons, there is also the familiar law and order vs. vigilante justice plot line as Barbara Gordon lays out her four point program to clean up Gotham in coordination with its citizens rather than relying on a mentally-stuck, child-like superhero. At the point where Batman is close to saying the word “sorry” which his brain or ego will not let him say, one kid blurted out for all to hear, “He’s so weird”. Batman has always been on the darker edge of the superheroes, and it’s no surprise to us when he accidentally stumbles upon a Justice League party at Superman’s Fortress of Solitude that he was deliberately excluded from. Even other on screen superheroes have their Batman limits. While The LEGO Batman Movie’s plots and themes are mundane and expected, there are enough cheesy laugh moments to make this a worthwhile time at the theater. It may even be better to leave your kid at home so you don’t spend the whole time explaining everything he doesn’t understand, because that’s most of and the best parts of the movie.
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