Review of The Lego Ninjago Movie (2017) by Sociostache — 22 Sep 2017

With a surprising and touching adventure like The Lego Movie, followed by a funny and self-aware hero flick like The Lego Batman Movie, The Lego Ninjago Movie had a lot of expectations to fulfill, both from fans of the Lego sets and moviegoers.

While the film boasts some great animation and a few great laughs, The Lego Ninjago Movie is a fairly disappointing but still fun romp through the ever-expanding Lego film universe. If you were expecting a funny but heartfelt adventure populated by the iconic five (or six, now, I guess) ninja, prepare to have those expectations ruined.

Aside from Lloyd and Garmadon, there is little to no screentime or character development for anyone on the roster. Considering how well the other two Lego movies have tackled this, I'm surprised the writers dropped the ball so bad.

The main four ninja can't even summon the effort to be one-dimensional. If you can't stand Lloyd and prefer the other ninja instead, this is a movie you can skip. Additionally, the action and animation feel a bit lackluster this time around.

Instead of the exciting and spectacular chases in The Lego Movie or the hilarious and epic fights in The Lego Batman Movie, we're left with a few mediocre and rather poorly choreographed battles that can't even manage to be particularly hard-to-follow.

Confusingly, the funny and clever smoke, fire, and water animation which utilized Lego bricks instead of simple CGI is gone; rather favoring a simpler animation that looks rather ugly at times. Even some of the landscapes aren't Lego.

The story was okay, to be honest. It didn't have the heart of the first Lego film, nor the self-aware but also self-contained humor of the second. But the message got its point across, even if the plot itself was very bare-bones and frustrating at times.

Lastly, the jokes in this film rely more on parodies, references, and drawn-out gags a lot more than the first two, making it feel like a crummy Marvel movie. While not completely unfunny, it signals a worrying turn for the future of the Lego Movie franchise.