Starring: Will Arnett, Zach Galifianakis, Michael Cera, Rosario Dawson, Ralph Fiennes
Director: Chris McKay
Synopsis: In the irreverent spirit of fun that made “The LEGO® Movie” a worldwide phenomenon, the self-described leading man of that ensemble – LEGO Batman (Will Arnett) – stars in his own big-screen adventure. But there are big changes brewing in Gotham, and if he wants to save the city from The Joker’s (Zach Galifianakis) hostile takeover, Batman may have to drop the lone vigilante thing, try to work with others and maybe, just maybe, learn to lighten up.
“You can’t be a hero if you only care about yourself.”
The LEGO Batman Movie has arrived on the home formats following a hugely successful release in cinemas earlier this year. We first saw Will Arnett’s version of the Caped Crusader in 2014’s The LEGO Movie, a huge smash at the box-office worldwide, and the actor reprises the role here.
The film revolves around the Dark Knight in his first stand-alone brick-effort, a wonderfully inventive, highly entertaining adventure full of witty in-jokes, brilliantly executed, fun set-pieces and an exceptional voice cast.
We meet Batman in a full-on mission at the start of the movie, taking on his biggest nemesis (or is he), The Joker (voiced by Zach Galifianakis). He takes him down and saves Gotham City once again, however, the big smiler gets away once again. With a new commissioner in town named Barbara Gordon (Rosario Dawson), the immediate object of Batman’s affection, her father Jim Gordon having retired, and all of the villains handing themselves over to the authorities, the relevance of Batman is questioned with no bad guys to take on. He is forced to focus his attention on more personal matters, including a newly formed relationship with his adopted ‘son’ Dick (Michael Cera).
Related: The LEGO Movie Blu-ray review
Of course, The Joker has other plans and a surrender is just part of an elaborate bigger picture. Using the likes of super-villains the Gremlins, Daleks, Agent Smith from The Matrix, Godzilla, some ‘raptors, Sauron, and even Lord Voldemort, Joker forms an army to finally bring Gotham to its knees, and Batman must unite with Barbara, Alfred and Dick (aka Robin) to save the day.
The LEGO Batman Movie is tons of fun, pretty much from the off. As you may be able to tell from the above, there are tons of in-jokes, including many digs at the WB/ DC universe – “What am I going to do? Get a bunch of criminals together to fight the criminals?”, Batman says following a suggestion of using the likes of Bane and other super-villains to aid him in his quest to stop The Joker.
The film is epic in scale, and initial worries that the film may run out of steam are almost immediately ups the ante scene after scene. There’s a wonderful underlying theme of family running and showing your true feelings all of the way through it, the film having much more depth that was initially expected.
It’s excellently animated, has a great score from the awesome Lorne Balfe, as well as two belting lead songs – all of which contribute to a perfectly performed and crafted package. In fact, everything is awesome and worthy to be included in your collection. The best Batman film since The Dark Knight.
Extras: Our preview copy included a making-of – ‘One Brick At A Time: Making The Lego Batman Movie’ – which features talking heads with director Chris Mackay, most of the voice cast, and Chris Miller and Phil Lord, producers of the new film and directors of The LEGO Movie. It goes in to the W.A.G. brain-trust – the group of filmmakers who contributed to the movie. They include the likes of Lord and Miller, Nicholas Stoller and Glenn Ficarra and John Requa. We get a look at the actors record their dialogue, the animatics that went into preparing the animation, following the filmmakers as they visit the LEGO HQ in Denmark, and then the truly unique way that the film is built and animated. The making of is very brief and doesn’t linger on any section for more than a minute of so, but its an interesting, though brief bolt-on.
The LEGO Batman Movie is out now on Digital Download, and will be released on DVD and Blu-ray from 19th June, 2017.
