Review of The Lego Batman Movie (2017) by James S — 22 Jul 2017

Punchy, fast-talking, and with as much heart as The Lego Movie, Lego Batman proves it can deliver multi-age entertainment, with a heavy sprinkling of IPs.

With a few throwaway line exceptions, this story could have happened in a live-action or traditional animation film. The tone, however, is perfectly suited to the medium; it is much too upbeat and cheerful for a 'regular' Batman movie. Throughout the whole film, we see a lot of the familiar Gotham characters, but there are five we focus on for the main plot.

Batman (with stellar voice acting by Will Arnett) literally leads the charge here, bowling over everything in his path. He is assisted by Alfred (voiced incredibly Britishly by Ralph Fiennes), Dick Grayson (played with just the right amount of needling by Michael Cera), and Barbara Gordon (Rosario Dawson). Chief among the rogue's gallery of villains (by his own admission) is the Joker (Zach Galifanakis), who sets out to unleash as many villains on Gotham as he can.

As with The Lego Movie, there are many, many characters from other franchises in here. It's bothering me less here, but I am likely acclimated to it by this point. None of these side characters have any major role, there are really only five characters in the film who get an arc.

As with many of these movies, there are lots of quick jokes that kids will miss to keep older folks entertained. If you enjoyed The Lego Movie, you will almost certainly enjoy Lego Batman.