The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part ticks all the requisite boxes for a successful animation film: it’s fun but offers serious life lessons and appeals to all age groups. The film’s characters, its conceits, the flights of imagination don’t just offer wonderment to children but adults as well. The cute, “adorably destructive” Lego heart aliens, the transformation of Bricksburg into the wasteland of Apocalypseburg, Emmet (Chris Pratt)’s dream home in which he wants to live forever with Lucy (Elizabeth Banks) even as she wants him to grow up and shed his innocence for maturity. Then there’s the parallel romantic track with the form-changing, shape-shifting Queen Watevra Wa’Nabi (Tiffany Haddish) of Systar System wanting to marry Batman (Will Arnett).
- Director: Mike Mitchell
- Cast: Maya Rudolph, Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Banks, Tiffany Haddish, Will Arnett
- Run time: 107 minutes
- Storyline: While Finn and Bianca play with their Lego creations, in the Lego world itself Duplo invasions have turned Bricksburg into the wasteland Apocalypseburg.
Much fun is had, cocking a snook at the superheros, the dark and brooding Batman and his search for emotional validation in particular. Even as there is that earworm of a song “Everything is Awesome” featured delightfully in the film, there is also the fun takedown of pop music and its supposed abetment in brainwashing people. But is it really so harmful? There are deeper, adult life lessons that we are led on to in the seemingly simply story-telling, about our illusions and delusions. How someone who we may perceive as our enemy could be our strongest ally and a friend may be a foe in sheep’s clothing. How miscommunication can lead to needless misgivings. How it is difficult to build things but easy to break them. There are bigger questions asked: You can't go back to the person you used to be, so is it really worth it then to grow up and mature? Isn’t it better to retain one’s pristine innocence?
The film appears to make the case for abandoning anything cute and bright for toughening up. It seems to choose the grim and gritty world over the fairytale happy. But not quite. “It is easy to harden your heart but opening it is the hardest thing”, says a line in the film which is also its adage. The twist in the tale may seem awkward, deliberate and convenient but it is all heart and strong enough to curb the cynicism of the likes of yours truly. Who wouldn't want reconciliations — between siblings, friends and even nations? Isn't healing, unity and peace just what the world needs at large? The Lego Movie 2 ensures that you will leave the cinema hall, feeling good and on a hopeful sugar high.
