“The Lego Batman Movie” is a comedy for all ages
After the success of “The Lego Movie,” Warner Bros. Animation continues their dive into a theatrical universe with “The Lego Batman Movie.” “Lego Batman” tells the story of Batman as he battles his enemy, the Joker, while also learning lessons about family and friendship. While this premise may sound silly and child-oriented, I, as a college freshman, was able to enjoy this movie.
The driving force of “Lego Batman” is the creative and comedic writing. The film has a break-neck comedic pace which keeps the audience laughing the whole way through. The majority of the jokes are family friendly, but there are many subtle references that older viewers will understand as well.
“Lego Batman” surprised me because I did not expect the amount of pop culture references the movie would have. The movie is also tailored toward Batman fans, as many references will only be picked up by the seasoned Batman enthusiast. These references, paired with the fast-paced comedic dialogue made the movie consistently entertaining.
Another key to the success of “Lego Batman” is the animation. Much like the earlier “Lego Movie,” the computer generated imagery (CGI) with the feel of stop motion animation is mesmerizing. The subtle imperfections and the lighting of the plastic gives the characters and environment a realistic feel. Sure, the world is made up of talking and animated Lego pieces, but their look is very accurate to real Legos.
The colorful nature of Lego also adds to the high energy of the movie, and the characters all move quickly and fluidly. Will Arnett voices Batman, and does a great job of both parodying Christian Bale’s Batman voice and making it his own character. Arnett takes such a dark and serious character and gives him the charm and emotion of a small child. It is certainly one of the more cartoony and simplistic takes on the character of Batman, but it plays with the comedy perfectly.
“Lego Batman” even portrays themes and problems that are adult-oriented, and present good lessons to children. It tackles themes such as loss, isolation, and tragedy. Family movies reference subtle adult themes and messages to expose children to real world problems. Many family movies fail at acknowledging these dismal themes, and oversimplify complicated ideas and concepts for children, or, even worse, choose not to acknowledge them at all. Not all children’s movies need to be dark or have dark themes, but a family oriented film shouldn’t just be sunshine and rainbows. I applaud “Lego Batman” for tackling these mature ideas while also being a movie that made me laugh countless times.
“Lego Batman” outperformed all expectations I had for it. I didn’t expect it to be anywhere as close to the quality of “The Lego Movie,” and yet, it deserves the praise. It is truly a testament to Warner Bros. Animation, who could have easily made the Lego franchise into some commercialized schlock, but instead produced quality family entertainment, I highly recommend “Lego Batman” to anyone and everyone.
