The Lego Movie – Release Date – April 3rd 2014

Directed by  Phil Lord, Christopher Miller . Animation co-director / Animation supervisor Chris McKay

I’ve been anticipating the release of The Lego Movie for a long time now. I’ve been fortunate enough to have seen a screening with the team from Animal Logic who made the film in Sydney, Australia. I also caught the Australian Premiere, where I interviewed animation co-director Chris McKay beforehand about his work on the film, and the news that he is set to direct the sequel.

The Lego Movie is everything I could have hoped for and a whole lot more.

I’ve been a HUGE fan of the toy Lego since I was a child, and I still have many pieces from y childhood. With three kids ageing in range from 17-6, Lego has been a staple for my entire life.

The story has been simplified from other versions of the script that at various stages incorporated dozens more characters.

Given the creative team’s work with Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and Robot Chicken, it’s a certainty that this film has an anarchic flavour to it.

Emmet (Chris Pratt) is just an ordinary rules abiding Lego mini-figure, who stumbles across the piece of resistance – a strange plastic block that holds special meaning to a band of Lego outcasts known as The Master Builders. This tribe of persecuted fringe-dwellers live outside the usual boundaries of the Lego universe and need to find the”Special” – the one Lego mini-figure that can stop the terrible Kra’Gle – a fiendish device that threatens to stop the Lego universe in it’s tracks.

Emmet interrupts Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks) as she is about to uncover the artefact that can save them all. It becomes lodged on Emmet’s back and Wyldstyle believes he must be the Special – as foretold in the prophesy established at the beginning of the film by Vitruvius (Morgan Freeman) and she embarks on a mission to unite Emmet with the remaining Master Builders so they can put a stop to the Kra’Gle once and for all.

With a stellar voice cast including Will Arnett as Batman, Will Ferrell as Lord Business and Liam Neeson as Good Cop/Bad Cop, this is possibly even more fun for adults than it is for kids.

That said my six year old daughter has seen it twice and loved it. It has fired up her desire to play with Lego. My wife and I loved it and my 13 year old son thought it was very wacky and was smiling throughout the entire film.

It is so absurdly clever, so anarchic, and such a lover letter to generations of Lego fans who have both followed the instructions to the letter and also created their own reality, that this may be my favourite animated film of all time. It’s being heralded as the best animated film of the last ten years, and it begs to be seen at the movies in 3D, and again at home with a pause button to see what it really going on in all those incredible backgrounds.

5 Stars.