(director)
(studio)
(length)
07 February 2019 (released)
07 February 2019
The first Lego Movie, written and directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, was a surprise hit back in 2014 and sparked spin-offs; The Lego Batman Movie and The Lego Ninjago Movie. Now audiences can return to the original story with this sequel, directed by Mike Mitchell from Lord and Miller's script.
At the end of the first film, viewers discovered that the events of the animated Lego world of Bricksburg was taking place in a elaborate Lego set used by young boy Finn, a live-action character. In the sequel, Finn's sister Bianca (Brooklynn Prince) has grown up and wants to play too, so she starts invading his Lego set-up with her Duplo toys.
In the animated world, Bricksburg has turned into Apocalypseburg due to regular attacks by the Duplo invaders.
One day General Sweet Mayhem (Stephanie Beatriz) from the Systar System - a reference to Bianca's bedroom - kidnaps Wyldstyle (Banks), Batman (Will Arnett), Benny (Charlie Day), Metalhead (Nick Offerman) and Unikitty (Alison Brie) and takes them to her world, where ruler Queen Watevra Wa'Nabi (Tiffany Haddish) plans to marry Batman to unite the two worlds.
Emmett (Pratt) must conquer his fears and travel to the Systar System to rescue his friends, with the help of Rex Dangervest (also Pratt), an adventurer he finds on the way.
Fans of the first movie can rest assured that the sequel is just as funny, clever, meta and littered with pop culture references are the first one. There are so many it's hard to keep up with them. There are many laugh-out-loud moments and it is a film that can be enjoyed by parents and children alike, although it may be a bit more entertaining to films fans who can recognise the nods to movies like Mad Max: Fury Road, Star Wars, Back to the Future and Jurassic World, which stars their very own Chris Pratt.
The actors are perfectly cast for their characters and they make an impressive and hilarious ensemble. There is a bigger mix between animated and live-action this time around, so we have a bigger cast on the human side, with notable newcomers including The Florida Project's breakout star Prince as Bianca and Maya Rudolph as the mum. Will Ferrell was prominent in both worlds - as the dad and the voice of Lord Business - last time but only has a minimal voice role here.
The sequel is also an unexpected musical, with many songs, including an update on the first film's catchy pop anthem Everything is Awesome, two numbers for Haddish to sing, including a hilarious duet with Batman, as well as a deliberately inane pop song which repeats the line "this song's gonna get stuck inside your head" - it's very effective - and a very smart track that must be listened to during the credits.
The first film was so unexpected, fresh and exciting, and while the sequel is still as good as its predecessor, it's hard to love it quite as much as the original because we've seen it all before and it delivers on expectations, which is still impressive since they were extremely high.
