“Lego Movie” Sequel Kills Story

“The Lego Movie: Second Part” takes place five years after the events of “The Lego Movie” where Emmett and his friends are living in a city called, Apocalypseburg. The city is meant to hide them from the citizens of the Systar System that crash landed in Bricksburg after the events of Taco Tuesday and wreaked havoc amongst its citizens for building anything structurally beautiful and grand. When Emmett accidentally allows General Mayhem (Stephanie Beatriz) from the Systar System into the bunker of Apocalypseburg, his friends are kidnapped and brought to the Systar System to attend the wedding of Batman (Will Arnett) and Queen Watevra Wa’Nabi (Tiffany Haddish).

One of the things that hasn’t changed from the initial film of “The Lego Movie” is the jokes, and its oddly satisfying, catchy music that serves as satirical jokes to its viewers. For example, the film makes fun of its original pop song from the first movie by creating the song, “Everything Not Awesome” which is not as catchy. Just as memorable Dillon Francis created the “Catchy Song” sung by the cast as well as T-Pain and The Girl Lay Lay while Emmett and his newly recruited friend Rex Dangervest (Chris Pratt) infiltrate the Systar System, this prevents Batman and Queen Watevra Wa’Nabi’s wedding to save their friends from possible, ultimate destruction.

Unfortunately, if audiences are looking for a hard-hitting comedic film for the family, then it’s probably not the greatest idea to see “The Lego Movie 2” as there aren’t as many hard-hitting jokes as the last film. Some of the puns and jokes made were not all that necessary and could have spent time animating or creating more clever jokes rather than a cheap gag or two. For example, the creators placed a makeshift time skip of the gang traveling in space with General Mayhem as a joke to its viewers. Instead, they could have used the time to create a scene where the group tries to escape from General Mayhem’s ship. In addition to this, the film steered away from its narrative by emphasizing upon the drama between the relationship of Lucy (Elizabeth Banks) and Emmett and how they should deal with their traumatic circumstances. Because of this, the film’s message to not change who you are and to have a positive attitude on life got a bit lost in the story. There were many other messages that the film tried to tell, and none of them were shining through. It felt like the writers just decided to squish them together and hope for the best.

In general, the movie was average as there wasn’t anything surprising or exciting about the film that was different from its predecessor other than the emphasis upon switching between reality and the Lego Universe. This got irritating as the movie was primarily supposed to focus upon Legos. Otherwise, the jokes and music within the film were hilarious and would be satisfying to watch when looking for something nonsensical to watch with family and friends.