It’s been five years since everything was awesome and the citizens are facing a huge new threat: Lego Duplo invaders from outer space, wrecking everything faster than they can rebuild.
What is awesome is that the world has another fun-filled adventure with laughter, sugar, wonderful animation, and pieces to be built for the entire, colorful sequel. I always love watching “The LEGO Movie” and now it seems like I’m watching it again but in a different way. “The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part” adds a whole new experience where characters and the action seem to get more complicated than ever before. I can respect Mike Mitchell’s direction on helming the sequel but I’ve always regarded Phil Lord and Christopher Miller as a duo of “brain trust” writers.
“The LEGO Movie 2” features the returning characters of Emmet (Chris Pratt) and his friends Lucy (Elizabeth Banks), Batman (Will Arnett) and others, being kidnapped and taken to a spaceship where alien Queen Watevra Wa’Nabi (Tiffany Haddish) intends to wed Batman and, later, indirectly, make peace to both as newcomers to their world.
Not only did the cast from the first movie return for this sequel but new ones come in, including Tiffany Haddish and Maya Rudolph, even though she briefly appears in a short amount of time, and Stephanie Beatriz. Aside from that, Pratt also voices Rex Dangervest, a future version of Emmet whose character development was conceived by Pratts’ films, “Jurassic World,” “Guardians of the Galaxy,” and “The Magnificent Seven.” Also returning are the DCEU actors Jason Momoa, Gal Gadot, and Margot Robbie. And to add extra laughs, “Die Hard” actor Bruce Willis makes a cameo in the film, providing his John McClane persona as a reference.
The friendship served as the film’s main dynamics for the storyline and the characters. The plot development reflects a difficult alliance for the live-action characters to appear and re-appear in parts of the film. Those who pop up in the live-action scenes are the two children, Finn (Jadon Sand from the first film) and his sister, Bianca. Their relationship also served as the film’s dynamics and as an explainable reason why the setting and the characters become so difficult to flourish because of the healthy relationship between them.
I enjoyed the comedy much more than the first film as well as the music soundtrack that becomes the center of attention. While the “Everything is Awesome” song is put into earworm for the audience, other new songs like “Catchy Song” and “Super Cool” didn’t add up to their greater levels like in the original film. On the other side, I am more focused on the inside jokes and movie references, which are highly astounding to be used as a running gag throughout the film. The jokes give me a whole lot of laughs when it comes to putting anything perennial that refreshes the memories up as you grow up watching any particular films, such as “Mad Max” and Pixar films for example. Let’s not forget, I found a little homage Emmet provided, the “Rexcelsior” spaceship which is a play on the popular catchphrase “Excelsior,” used by Marvel’s late Stan Lee.
To top it all off, “The LEGO Movie 2” is an awesome movie, though I sort of enjoyed the first film just a little bit better than its follow-up. Mike Mitchell knows how to spin a tale that does not adhere to crash-and-burn destruction. I liked it, but I can’t give it a higher rating than the first “LEGO Movie.” If you want to have a great time at the movies, you can do no worse than this.
In theaters Friday, February 8th
