Review of The Lego Ninjago Movie (2017) by Troy C — 26 Sep 2017

Thanks to Phil Lord and Chris Miller, directors of 2014's extremely popular The Lego Movie, the Lego Cinematic Universe is in full swing. Earlier this year there was Lego Batman, now they're moving into kung fu territory (for the uninitiated: Ninjago = ninja lego).

Resetting / expanding the story told through eight seasons of TV show Ninjago: Masters of Spinjitzu, six heroic teenage ninjas must defend their city against fire-crying, shark-shooting and egocentric-manchild Garmadon (Justin Theroux).

Twist: lead ninja, Lloyd (Dave Franco), is actually Garmadon's son, and he carries plenty of emotional baggage on his missions to defeat his absentee father. Luckily Master Wu (Jackie Chan), Lloyd's uncle, pops in to help in amusingly random and cryptic ways.

Although boasting some playful martial arts sequences and larger-scale action set pieces, both highlighting the cleverness of these lego flicks, this film is a comedy first and foremost. Going with the quantity over quality approach, everything but the lego sink is thrown at the screen in the pursuit of laughs.

Puntastic one-liners, metaphorical gags, cheeky film references, and broad visual jokes are all present. For every hit there's a miss, which is a decent ratio considering the rapid-fire method of comedy and the relatively quick runtime.

Meeting expectations without exceeding them, The Lego Ninjago Movie doesn't light the world on fire, however it does offer a solid big-screen option for the school holidays.