The Lego Movie

From the minds behind Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs comes the truly splendid animated celebration of those plastic Danish bricks we all loved growing up. It is a 100 minute feast of colour, comedy and surreal invention, coupled with outstanding voice acting from the likes of Morgan Freeman, Liam Neeson and Will Ferrell that will leave even the most exam-stressed students laughing and singing the evening away.

Tipping its hat toward the self-aware set up of films such as Wreck It Ralph and Toy Story the film casts your everyday plastic construction worker Emmet (Chris Pratt), as our accidental hero. With the aid of the master builders; Wildstyle (Elizabeth Banks), Batman himself (Will Arnett) and led by the Gandalf-like figure, Vitruvius (Morgan Freeman), he must thwart the plans of President Business (Will Ferrell), who means to obliterate all nonconformist creativity with the aid of his alien relics of mass destruction (an instruction manual and some glue).

The Lego Movie is visually stunning; from the cloud-touching Lego skyscrapers to a climatic heaving ocean of Lego, the cubist animation creates a perfect visual style, lying between exciting CGI and those amateur stop-motion Lego videos we’ve all seen at one point or another. Combined with the animation action and undulating Lego vistas is a whole cast of likable and familiar figures, a host of smart consumer satire gags and an abundance of movie references. From a Lego metropolis to the wild-west, from the ocean depths to temples in the clouds, the film’s settings truly traverse the elements, and reinforce the comically cliché yet refreshingly hilarious plot. On the whole, the Lego movie is one fun nostalgia trip designed to blow the mind and will, without doubt, have you leaving the cinema wearing a real smile.

Liam Johnston