The LEGO Movie is about average-joe Emmet Brickowski, who turns out is so average that he may be the special key to saving the LEGO world. Joined by punky Wyldstyle, old sage Vitruvius (who up until reading the Wikipedia character list I thought was named “Lord Truthiness”… Too much Colbert?), Batman, and other well-built characters.
So, years following it’s release, was this movie as awesome on the first watch as its theme song proclaims?
For the most part, yeah. However, some things could have been better if one were inclined to dive deep. Given the entire movie with its self-aware tone and twists (more on that later), though, that makes some choices more forgivable than if these same plot and character choices were in, say, a straightforward three-act film.
Let’s start with characters and work our way down.
Emmet is the “special” who isn’t a typical hero, but at the same time, he is special in his own way. He’s a nice character, personality wise. A bit boring and “sunshine and rainbows” at the start, but it’s understandable. He never really knew drama or turmoil until it one day landed on him. I don’t know many other Emmets in media, except for the Emmett from Legally Blonde (the musical version being far superior to the film version). That being said, LEGO Emmet makes me appreciate the name all the more. Plus, sad to say, I didn’t know that Chris Pratt voiced him until about a week ago. I definitely see a bit of Andy Dwyer in him in hindsight. I like Emmet; I see him as the innocent bystander that happens to be the key to solving the problem.
What I don’t see is why many of the other characters label him as both an idiot and an unoriginal person. I don’t think that either of those labels fit him.
He’s always inclined, at the start, anyway, to follow the instructions while building with Lego bricks. I’ve always been a “wing it and see what happens” person myself. Instructions aren’t a bad thing though, and given that the average LEGO has intricate parts and pieces like this –
Yeah, I think following directions would be the smart thing to do here.
Even when he’s not being copy and paste, though, he gets weird looks. For instance: Emmet’s Double Decker Couch idea isn’t stupid at all! Even before it came in handy in saving lives, I have no clue why that was the crew was scoffing at it. Those things technically exist already. They’re call loft beds. The top is usually a plain bed, but some have the bottom level couch be a bed, or a pull out bed under the lower couch. Unless pull out beds can’t exist in LEGO Land because LEGO bricks don’t have a sliding mechanism?
I’m thinking too much about LEGO furniture …
Maybe the idea is that they’re saying “stupid” when they really mean “naive”? Even so, most ideas and things, no matter how niche, can have a purpose.
Another point is that when he is being questioned by Bad Cop, Emmet learns that no one really in his city sees him as special, nor does anyone know a trait about him. Emmet immediately lets himself feel sad because, hey, that’s a mean thing to learn about your coworkers. He’s open to negative emotions and accepts them, unlike Princess Unikitty who takes until the climax to let go of her forced smiles. He also offers emotional support when (it seems like) Wyldstyle’s boyfriend has left. Emotional intelligence is a huge sign of intelligence, and I’m really glad they let a guy character have good emotional capacity of without going too far in the other direction and making him also unproductive. Yeah, he’s not as life threateningly active as Wyldstyle, but I don’t think he needs to be. He’s obviously not lazy; he’s a construction worker and tries his best to help out when possible.
Speaking of which, let’s move onto Wyldstyle, also known as Lucy (mostly because that’s her given name).
She’s the modern heroine – strong, slightly snarky, but deep down is a fluffy bunny. Kind of a common character type these days, if I may say so, but she’s not a bad character in the slightest. I especially think that young girls would like her, especially when she’s able to hold her own ground and save others.
That being said … she kind of emotionally cheats on her boyfriend throughout this film. Does anyone else catch that? Firstly, when she mentions she has a boyfriend to Emmett, I thought it was one of those “I have a boyfriend” lies to get unwanted attention to go away. But then, Batman comes in and she wasn’t kidding. Good for her, Batman is a catch. Yet she constantly flops between maybe giving Emmet a chance and sticking with her “babe”. Even though it’s established that Batman is not an awful boyfriend (with a close call with the Star Wars cameo that I was expecting to go a more cliche route), she seems indecisive between the two of them.
Her backstory is glanced over for the most part (in a funny way, mind you), but one part that stuck out to me is that Vitruvius mentioned her as being the student that kept changing her name. She’s established as a fickle lady and scared to show her true self.
It’s the foil to Emmet’s character development, actually. While Emmet is an average person who has to figure out how use his own skills, Lucy is the character that needs to learn that not being the “special” doesn’t diminish who she really is.
Batman was cool, as always. This version is more self absorbed than others, but I see it more as another self-reference the movie has to poke fun at the fact that they’re using LEGO as the main set (pardon the pun). The movie knows it has all of these licenses behind it, while also trying to do something deeper than just advertising. Earlier I mentioned he’s a good guy when it came to Lucy’s flip-floppiness. Morals and traits of dressing as a bat and fighting crime aside, in this movie anyway, he’s not a jerk to Lucy when he realizes she likes Emmet more. I like that. It would have been so easy to go the, “He’s a jerk so of course she’d leave him” way. The LEGO Movie story is much more interesting to me. There’s no drama, it’s just something that happens in all of these people’s lives.
Tangent: Will Arnett voices Batman?! Like, Bojack Horesman Will Arnett? I would have tuned in much sooner had I known that. That voice will make watching The LEGO Batman Movie down the line more enjoyable than I’ve heard said film already is.
With the big twist this movie has (Emmet and co. are real LEGO toys being played with by a collector’s son), I’m likely thinking too deeply about character motivations. All the character positives and negatives are moot. Not pointless, because I did enjoy all of these characters, but they are moot because it’s not so much about what the characters do, it’s how they connect to emotions.
LEGOs already have a nostalgic vibe to them, having been around for so many decades. The film is smart enough to use LEGO as a visual choice, not to advertise and make more toys to cater to Millennials and Boomers and what have you (though undoubtedly that happened as a side effect). This film throws in self-references and a funny tone early on to prepare the viewer that this film is not trying to get into our wallets, but into our hearts as an enjoyable watch. The LEGO Movie can be seen as the rekindling of a father-son relationship expressed through Lego characters that the child defined, and while not perfect, the LEGO characters most assuredly play their parts both in their animated world and in the live action world.
Again, if these choices — Lucy’s boyfriend floundering, Emmet being slightly undermined, the use of LEGO in general — were in a film that didn’t have the live action twist, I’d imagine it’d be a very frustrating movie to watch.
But because of the choices the staff made, The LEGO Movie puts the “meta” in “metamorphosis”. That is, in my eyes, it completely revolutionizes the idea of meta, self-referential humor to be so much more meaningful, endearing, and tantalizing to one’s inner sense of wonder.
I really want to go play with LEGOs now and build a Double Decker Couch. I don’t actually have Lego bricks mind you, I’ll just pretend that I have one of those expensive sets.
Next time: Part deux for me and you.
Anima of Animation 
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