The Lego Movie

Everybody I asked if they’d like to go to the theater with me looked at me as if I were crazy, their loss... Bags of fun, full of ideas, great lines and incredible digs, where Gandalf and Dumbledore chat together and the Batmobile is parked on a Lego cloud at the end of a rainbow road. Such an awful mishmash, you just can’t help liking it. That’s what the story is about - a manual against fantasy, creativity struggles against business (Lord Business) using all possible and impossible ideas. The creative Lord/Miller duo mainly wants to put across an important message to children and adults alike: LEGO IS THE BEST! ;-) "We are from the planet Duplo, and we're here to destroy you!" (02/09/2014)

A few really polished jokes and the overall originality and liveliness of the setting can't quite make up for the quality level of the story, which is at times childish and sentimental to the point of shame, and in the end tries to dazzle with an idea that I wouldn't have bought into even as a father after three beers. Next time I'll opt for the dubbed version, which I'm sure will allow me to concentrate better on the elaborate visual details. For the time being, however, 65%. (05/26/2014)

A terribly chaotic affair. All those who found the film to be clear have my admiration, because all those exploding blocks made my head spin, and if someone hadn't shouted every now and then and commented on the situation, I probably wouldn't have had a clue what was going on. The worst thing was that the confusion almost suffocated even the few good jokes (I liked Han Solo and Chewbacca the best). The Simpsons episode that just made fun of this movie was a hundred times better. (10/20/2014)

Until the last moment, I couldn’t believe it would be so good. Lego Movie is packed with ideas, both in the visuals and in the dialogues, and it was such an onslaught at times that I almost couldn’t keep up. For a commercial movie for kids, it has some fairly smart overtones and an interesting resolution, which is of the self-serving kind, because it defends all the previous nonsense, but it’s not totally devoid of meaning. Really, I’m satisfied in every sense, this is the first blockbuster (if we can call it that) in a long time that exceeded my expectations. The theme song is so terrible that it’s incredibly catchy. (05/22/2014)

A presentation of Warner Bros. trademarks in the world of the construction-set king. It is the movie with the heaviest product placement ever (if we don’t count Logorama) hiding behind family fun. You take your kids to the multiplex, buy them some overpriced popcorn and on the way home spend the rest of your money in the Lego store. A few cool jokes and thorough technical craftsmanship, but those robotic figures are no more alive than the primitively animated Cartman and Kenny. And the final surprise with the “big idea” doesn’t make any sense. (04/03/2014)