The LEGO Movie review

BEST NEW FEATURE

Now, I review the critically-acclaimed animated film, The LEGO Movie.
Now THIS one was fun. I think there was a laugh for every minute of the film. For the first 2014 release I saw (Her opened in 2014 but was released in 2013), this is an excellent start. In fact, this is probably the best animated film I've seen in a long time. Yes, better than Frozen and Wreck-it Ralph.

With a comedy, most important is the humour. The LEGO Movie throws joke after joke your way, with such a breakneck speed that you might miss some of them-but you'll still be laughing almost constantly, because there's that many fantastic jokes littered throughout the movie. The frantic pace means that the film doesn't linger too long on any joke, but it doesn't sacrifice comedic timing-there are jokes which involve pauses for extra effect, or linger for just the right amount of time. It's a clever piece of work.

With an animated movie, the visuals are equally important. Although much of it is computer animated, there's still the feeling of really good stop-motion. And it's all wonderful. There's always so much going on, with so much colour and activity, that it's hard for any fan of animation not to love at least a little. The animation itself, as mentioned, is wonderfully smooth, and the art direction never fails to keep the look of LEGO bricks.

The voice acting was absolutely fantastic. Each performance was confident and fit the role perfectly, with even Morgan Freeman's iconic voice going by unrecognized. This is actually a really high bar to match for acting this year. There was also very good voice acting for Batman-in fact, this parody may be one of the best Batmans around.

And then there's the ending. You'll see more about that in the extended thoughts, but let me just say that it gives the movie some unexpected depth.

Altogether, The LEGO Movie is fantastic. All movie lovers and animation fans owe it to themselves to see it at least once. I wouldn't mind seeing this twice. As far as animated comedies go, this is the cream of the crop. It will be difficult for any animated feature this year to top it.

10/10

Extended thoughts: [link] (SPOILERS)