In 2014, we got one of the strangest but coolest ideas for an animated movie. The most popular brand of toys got a damn movie filled with all sorts of licensed characters like Gandalf. It could've been a disaster that seemed like a lengthy commercial for the toys, but it was a massive hit with both kids and adults! The humor, heart, and original ideas helped make The Lego Movie feel like a legitimate movie and a good one at that.
Funnily enough, one character that was just a simple cameo ended up being so popular with fans that Warner Bros. greenlit a solo film for that character. That character was none other than The Dark Knight himself, Batman. The film is about Batman being lonely and choosing to avoid having a family after the events in his childhood that created him. His life should be good as he's rich and famous, but he has no one to share his money and happiness with. Alfred eventually turns his attention to a young boy (Robin) he adopted and tells Batman to focus on the boy. What transpires is a heartwarming, animated comedy that makes fun of Batman's 75+ years in pop culture.
Below you'll find some excerpts from reviews for the film, both good and bad. The movie currently stands at a 97% on Rotten Tomatoes with 34 positive reviews and 1 negative. At the time of writing this, The Lego Batman Movie is the highest rated Batman film with Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight falling in second at 94%.
The Playlist
“The Lego Batman Movie” is still roughly four hundred million times more enjoyable than “Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice,” and hardcore Bat-fans will probably find it an absolute joy. But those of us who were hoping for the film to be something of an antidote to superhero formula will unfortunately find it adhering much too closely to the playbook."
C+
Variety
"The first thing to say about “The Lego Batman Movie” is that it’s kicky, bedazzling, and super-fun. The second thing to say about it is that, like “The Lego Movie” (2014), it’s a kiddie flick that’s been made in a sophisticated spirit of lightning-fast, brain-bursting paradox. The movie uses digital animation to create the illusion that it’s set in a herky-jerky universe of plastic Lego bricks — but it has such a kaleidoscopic, anything-goes flow that it trumps the imagination of just about any animated feature you could name. The characters are Lego minifigures with pegs for heads and crudely etched faces that barely move, yet they have more personality than the majority of human actors. Most delicious of all: “The Lego Batman Movie” comes on like a kid-friendly sendup of the adult world, yet there’s a dizzying depth to its satirical observations that grows right out of the spectacularly fake settings, which are hypnotic to look at but have the effect of putting postmodern quotation marks around…everything."
"“The Lego Batman Movie” uses the towering plasticity of Lego to tweak a superhero culture (namely, ours) that pretends to be about nobility but is really about the vain delusion of full-time fantasy. Your average Pixar comedy thumbs its nose at a great many things, but “The Lego Batman Movie” is a helter-skelter lampoon in the daftly exhilarating spirit of Mad magazine and the “Naked Gun” films. It’s that quick and cutthroat clever and self-knowing. There’s every chance it will soar at the box office, and make no mistake: It deserves to."
The Wrap
"“The Lego Batman Movie” gleefully parodies every mass-media iteration of its hero, from the serials to “Super Friends” and from Adam West to Ben Affleck. While hard-core devotees will enjoy an overflowing basket of Easter eggs, you don’t have to be a super-fan to enjoy its crafty mix of outlandish verbal humor and outrageous visuals."
"Movie superhero fans tend to be divided into camps, with Marvel people complaining about the dank glumness of the DC films, and DC partisans decrying the jokiness of Marvel movies. Committed to lunacy while paying homage to the varied legacy of Batman over the decades, “The Lego Batman Movie” might be the common ground that satisfies both camps."
IGN
"The usually dark world of Batman is reimagined with insane energy and vibrancy. The quality of animation ensures each one of its blocky characters bursts with life and emotion. I particularly love how McKay and his writers have – very much in the spirit of LEGO – mixed-and-matched elements from other Batman stories and adaptations. Danny DeVito’s Penguin colludes with Tom Hardy’s Bane, while Arnett’s Batman quotes Michael Keaton one minute and tips his cowl to Adam West the next. Where else can you see that? It’s a frenetic and joyously unhinged celebration of all things Batman. But it’s so much more than a parody. Beneath its eccentric surface, The LEGO Batman Movie finds a new way to approach these familiar characters. Yes, it’s a great comedy, but it’s a great Batman movie, too."
The Guardian
"It was already brave of the custodians of the Batman franchise to let The Lego Movie mock their prize asset so mercilessly in 2014. The fact that they’ve doubled down with this feature-length parody suggests they figure either Batman can take it, or that he’s reached that point in the superhero cycle where it’s no longer possible to take him seriously. Either way, this gag-packed, knockabout action-adventure has a lot of fun with the character, while also broaching his pathologies in a way the “serious movies” rarely do. It doesn’t have the heart, the depth or the novelty of the first Lego movie, but it is relentlessly, consistently funny – which excuses everything."
The Lego Batman Movie releases in theaters this week on February 10th.
