Review of The Lego Batman Movie (2017) by Omar L — 17 Sep 2017

The joy of The LEGO Movie was the incorporation of the characters to service how imaginative using LEGO blocks could be. It spoke to what drives imagination and ingenuity. In this spinoff, LEGO actually takes a backseat to the deconstruction of Batman and his darkness. Unfortunately, the movie offers little that Batman fans have not seen before. (***).

EDIT.

I don't know why I was in such a critical mood for this movie. Maybe because seeing it on the big screen was a little bit too much for my senses, or maybe because I got up on the wrong side of the bed that day. Whatever the case may be, seeing it again on the small screen heightened my appreciation for this movie. The in-jokes, the rapid-fire pacing, and the silly nostalgia all worked. I still think the movie is still too frantic, as one of the highlights of The LEGO Movie was seeing with quite a bit of clarity how the master builders were able to build their creations. Here, the genius of LEGO takes a backseat to the parody of the Batman mythos, and I think it lessens the impact of the fact that this is, indeed a LEGO movie.