THE LEGO MOVIE: Everything Is Meta

In which we behold Will Ferrell's face with a sense of awe.

Directors: Phil Lord and Christopher Miller
Writers: Phil Lord and Christopher Miller
Cast: Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Banks, Will Ferrell, Morgan Freeman, Liam Neeson, Will Arnett, Charlie Day, Alison Brie, Nick Offerman
Runtime: 100 mins.
2014

There are three types of movie watchers. (Okay, there are a million types of movie watchers, but I'm trying to construct a framework here.) Thoughtless movie watchers, Thoughtful movie watchers, and Thoughtfilled movie watchers.

There's nothing inherently wrong with Thoughtless movie watchers. Most folks watch movies this way. Passive entertainment to be digested and promptly set aside. They're the kinds of folks who think that another Transformers movie sounds pretty good, why not. Or another Marvel movie. Or another Liam Neeson action thriller. Or another kids' movie based on a familiar property. If it strikes them as good and comfortable, they'll see it. You could get into ethical/political arguments about this type of filmgoer, and whether they should be more thoughtful about the ramifications of their choice of media consumption (the studio system gets screwed up by the popularity of movies like Transformers and ends up churning out more crap like it--not to mention the dangerous sexism and racism and political sentiments those movies espouse, etc. etc.). But that's another argument for another time. Thoughtless movie watchers are fine. They would enjoy a movie like the movie I'm writing about today.

For Thoughtful movie watchers, passive digestion isn't enough. They bring a critical eye to their consumption, and tend to appreciate films more on the level of craft. They're careful about what movies they spend their time and money on, and they want to discuss them after the fact. They go crazy with writing self-important movie reviews to post on a blog nobody reads. They are the kinds of people who would be immediately suspicious about everything surrounding a movie like The Lego Movie, which has Corporate Cash Grab written all over its cylindrical yellow face. They would be primed to dismiss the movie as capitalist tripe and move on to the next Scorsese or Tarantino film. Until they started hearing glowing reviews for The Lego Movie pour in, which would pique their curiosity. They couldn't help but investigate the hype, and they would watch The Lego Movie, wary but cautiously open-minded. And once they acclimated themselves to the strange animation style and gag-heavy energy of the beginning of the film, they would be totally on board.

Thoughtfilled movie watchers are a different matter. They are the folks who are trying to be critical and thoughtful about movies, but are unwilling or unprepared to approach a film on its own terms. Instead, their heads are filled with mountains of preconceptions and assumptions about media that they have not yet digested, and as a result their perspective will often be skewed. Like the Thoughtless movie watchers, they will give you a weird look whenever you talk about a movie that is somehow foreign or off-kilter to their sensibilities (although the look from the Thoughtless movie watchers will contain more confusion, and that of the Thoughtfilled will contain more condescension). Like the Thoughtful movie watchers, these folks will come to the conclusion that The Lego Movie is a Corporate Cash Grab immediately after it enters their radar. They might even look down on the ignorant masses who will no doubt flock to the theaters to throw their money at such a ploy. They will avoid this movie if they can, reviews be damned. And if they happen to see the movie, they will cynically pick it apart as well as they can, because no movie based on a kid's toy property could possibly be an intelligent, unique, energetic, engaging, worthwhile, socially conscious piece of cinema. Right?

RIGHT????

Surprise surprise, The Lego Movie defies all expectations and somehow manages to be all those positive qualities I just mentioned. And you know what? I think my theory might be wrong in this case. Unlike other movies like this, I honestly believe that if you managed to sit a Thoughtfilled movie watcher down in front of this movie, they would be converted by the end. That's the unprecedented power of The Lego Movie.

By all appearances, The Lego Movie hews to the structure of the hero's journey. You know the one, a protagonist who seems normal but is actually Special. A big baddie whose actions result in the destruction of his way of life. The wise mentor figure who calls the hero, but the hero must at first deny the call, yadda yadda yadda. It's a rubric for epic heroism that our friend Film Crit Hulk has been railing against for years. Not that the structure isn't effective, but that it's a prime example of the dangers of form over function. Crafting a story by this structure alone is a paint-by-numbers affair that will ring hollow because of its lack of true storytelling.

Luckily for us, The Lego Movie only follows this structure in appearance. Instead, it is a send-up of the hero's journey, sometimes playing the mythic structure for parody, sometimes for subversion, and sometimes for earned, honest moments. The most immediately apparent achievement of The Lego Movie is that it knows how it must seem to us, and it subverts our expectations at every turn.

Take Vitruvius (Morgan Freeman, in a sly bit of meta-casting). He is the textbook case of the mentor figure, an old blind wizard who propagates a prophecy about the Special--the one who is destined to wield the Piece of Resistance, the only thing that can stop the superweapon called the Kragle that has fallen into the hands of the heinous Lord Business (Will Ferrell). It all sounds pretty standard, right?

Turns out Vitruvius is actually a goofy old man who only knows what he's doing half the time, and Lord Business becomes President Business, the leader who everybody loves. Not to mention that the Kragle is actually just a container of Krazy Glue and the Piece of Resistance is just the cap for the glue... which I only figured out halfway through the movie.

Not only that but both Vitruvius and President Business have ulterior motivations that completely subvert the character types that they are representing, namely a shocking late-game admission from Vitruvius that not only changes how we see his character, but reshades the entire movie, and asks big questions about individuality, religion, and purpose.

To further explore how The Lego Movie uses surface assumptions to its advantage for the purpose of storytelling, we need to talk about Batman.

Yes, Batman is a main character in this movie. If you're like me, you probably rolled your eyes when you first learned this. Rolled your eyes inwardly, at least. I always roll my eyes inside my head.

Lo and behold, Batman's character is not only a hilarious parody of the dark, brooding version of Batman with whom we have become so familiar, but he is also an important character as far as story function. Voiced typically by Will Arnett, Batman is the cocky asshole of the team. He thinks his way is the best way, and has a hard time bending his personality for group collaboration. This plays beautifully into the movie's themes of collectivity vs. individuality that I'll get into later. But I will forever marvel (no pun intended?) at the fact that Batman manages to be a funny, compelling character in a children's comedy movie. How antithetical is that?

As an added bonus, I'm shocked and delighted that Warner Bros. gave the okay on this character, who basically undercuts everything that they are hoping to accomplish with Batman in the upcoming Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice. And yes, that is the actual title. Here, listen to the Batman song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqv_LUStxDw

I could go on listing tropey characters and how this movie subverts those tropes, but you get the idea. In fact, among the scads of secondary and tertiary characters, of which there are many (and many cameos, including but not limited to Anthony Daniels, Will Forte, Dave Franco, Jonah Hill, Keegan-Michael Key, Chris McKay, Shaquille O'Neal, Cobie Smulders, Channing Tatum, Billy Dee Williams...) there is only one character who doesn't completely work.

I'm talking about Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks), Emmet's primary companion on this journey. The main character is named Emmet, by the way.

It's not that she's a bad character. She just doesn't fully achieve what she was meant to achieve. It's clear that she's a self-conscious amalgamation of many of the tropes and conceptions of women we see again and again in cinema. Part action movie badass, part romcom dream girl, the movie sets these cliches up only to ground her character in a deeper conflict about identity. In that sense, it's successful. But in another sense, her role in the film is ultimately that of supporting Emmet, no matter how much he tells her that she is special too. The sensitive protagonist wins the woman away from the jerk-off boyfriend (who is Batman in this case--yes, Wyldstyle is dating Batman). Not only that, but by the end of the movie her character has been relegated to a supporting role no greater than that of Unikitty (Alison Brie) or Benny the Spaceman (Charlie Day). To be fair, the movie was juggling a whole lot of balls (no pun intended!), but it's a bummer of a missed opportunity.

But why is it that when a lot of balls are being juggled, the one that's always dropped is that of the female character? We saw it time and time again this summer. Surprisingly entertaining and impressive blockbuster films (X-Men: Days of Future Past, Godzilla, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, and most similarly Guardians of the Galaxy) lacking compelling roles for women. It makes the achievements of Edge of Tomorrow stand out even more in stark contrast.

Other than a misstep here or there, The Lego Movie does a remarkable job of undercutting our expectations in meaningful ways. The surface layers are never what they seem. It's a freshness of perspective reminiscent of that most hallowed of Pixar films, Toy Story. The achievement of each of these movies was not the idea of giving these familiar toys a voice, but rather the combination of unpredictability and relatability with which these toys spoke.

That freshness of perspective also breathes life into the visuals. Again like a Pixar movie, there's always something gleefully imaginative to feast your eyes on in this world. The animation is particularly impressive when watching the Master Builders (is this supposed to be a dirty pun?--I'm honestly wondering) construct their creations from the materials they find in the world around them. Parts and pieces fly willy-nilly as motorcycles and watercraft take form before our very eyes. The only visual analogy I can think of is the complex interweaving of metallic parts in the Transformers movies, although The Lego Movie is different in that it makes you believe that these objects could be constructed in something resembling a physical world. We see the parts fit together!

Of all these favorable qualities at play here, nothing is more exciting to me than the complex thematic work going on. We go into this movie expecting yet another riff on the tiresome thread of, "You can save the day by learning to be yourself!" that every single movie marketed to children feels the need to espouse. This is a sentiment that not only limits children's movies, but can be found in all manner of adult action flicks, and it goes back to the lazy hero's journey framework. "Our hero is for some reason special, and that is why he is our hero," is not good enough. Stirring up some crock about destiny or specialness is not enough to make a protagonist sympathetic. Take your pick of examples, but since I just watched it yesterday, I'm looking at you, Star Trek: Into Darkness.

For all The Lego Movie's talk of the Special and his Destiny, something much subtler is going on here. A borderline Randian focus on individual expression isn't the endgame. That becomes apparent in a scene in which a group of five or so heroes tries to quickly construct an escape submarine, only to have each of their signature styles clash and nearly get everybody killed in an underwater implosion. Heavy, right? Collectivity alone isn't enough, and individuality alone isn't enough--rather, success is about how individuals orient their special talents towards the collective--that's what counts. Have you ever heard such a sophisticated message from a candy-colored cash-grab children's movie?

All of this is hammered home in a late movie sequence that I will not spoil here, but is one of the most intelligent, interesting, and emotional sequences that I have seen in a movie all year. Remember that hero's journey circle above? This sequence is what happens when our hero goes through the "Abyss," and what he finds on the other side. It brings the threads of the movie together in such a surprising, fulfilling fashion that... well... you just have to see it.

All of this from a movie about Legos. But then, directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller have made a career from turning stale properties into unprecedented success. With that in mind, it becomes easy to interpret The Lego Movie as a treatise on how to be an artist. Instead of being crushed by the studio system when they were attached to a cash-grab property like The Lego Movie, Lord and Miller made it into a meta-commentary on how not to let your creativity be crushed by the systems above you--be they President Business, the studio system, the hero's journey, or dear old Dad. Frankly, this is a movie that I believe should be mandatory viewing for anyone who wants to spend their lives engaging in acts of creation.

To that end, I appreciate your patience working through this big review, and I want to suggest that you take the time to read another big review. Film Crit Hulk's piece on the real awesomeness of The Lego Movie takes a big picture view of this movie's importance for contemporary society in a more eloquent way than I could achieve:

http://badassdigest.com/2014/02/11/film-crit-hulk-smash-the-real-awesomeness-of-the-lego-movie/

I used to place Rango at the top of my list of most intelligent kids' movies for its whip-smart dialogue and genre play. I believe the lizard has been supplanted. The Lego Movie is one of those movies that you're going to want to show to your children, and your children's children, because it is a movie that speaks to our inner child without condescending to it.

4.5 / 5  BLOBS