The world of “The Lego Movie” is already weird because it’s full of talking and moving Legos, a feat that accurately employs stop-motion animation in a cute and quirky way.
But when the hero of this story is oblivious, awkward and –most surprisingly– legitimately inadequate, the world takes an even stranger turn.
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Buying over-priced coffee, watching a terrible show entitled “Where Are My Pants?” and singing a theme song of “Everything Is Awesome” are only a few of the generic and satirized things that an instruction manual of life tells Emmet to do. He follows with little to no awareness of the world around him, and so it’s almost comically tragic when he is chosen as the ‘Master Builder’ (a word with associations of ‘hero among Lego-men’) of a prophecy.
Emmet gets thrown into the mess by coincidentally stumbling upon a red ‘Piece of Resistance’, the one thing that will stop the evil Lord Business (Will Ferrell) from ‘Kragle-ing’, or gluing, everything to fit his idea of perfection, which serves as a clever play on conformity but remains a concept that extends past Emmet’s limited comprehension level.
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The irony is there really is no greater reason behind why he was chosen, because the prophecy explicitly acknowledges how cliche it is, just like every other trope in the movie does. Emmet tries his best to be hero, but the movie doesn’t throw him a bone by making him naturally good at his job– he sucks at it for a good majority, evoking a lot of pity laughter at times.
But “The Lego Movie” also has witty banter that effortlessly plays off the protagonist being dumber than his supporting cast, especially when it comes to his feisty love interest WyldStyle (Elizabeth Banks). Emmett’s sidekicks, who are knowledgeable actual Master Builders, are also glamorous established pop culture figures such as Batman (Will Arnett) and Gandalf-Dumbledore hybrid ‘Vitruvius’ (Morgan Freeman), and famous archetypes such as Bad Cop/Good Cop (Liam Neeson); and they take every opportunity to tongue-in-cheek remind their audience of the humor that comes with their roles. All of these guys get by on arrogance, but in a cutely satisfying turn of events, end up undermined by Emmett’s blank yet open mind.
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The movie could have fared on its own as a subtle social commentary. Hell, it could have fared on its own just by being animated.
Instead, it decided to teach the audience a heartfelt lesson as well — sometimes, our childhood playmates can be an allegory for dilemmas we face in life every day (as the last live-action scenes show).
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