The LEGO Batman Movie

***1/2

Reviewed by: Angus Wolfe Murray

The Lego Batman Movie
"In crash bang lingo this would be dubbed explosivimo"

Whoever thought of making a movie out of LEGO bits and bobs should be applauded and given a raise. The first outing, imaginatively called The LEGO Movie, worked wonders because of a cool script and hilarious characters. Also, the CGI animators had permission to wreck the joint. Totally aweforsome!!

The sequel introduces the batty man, the jokester and the whole nine yards - magic/super/hero/villains in primary colours, voiced by a team of audio A-listers. What could possibly go tits up?

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There's a war going on between the script soldiers and the CGI animeisters. The result goes hay and a little bit wired - Too Much Too Fast. Chaos reigns and when this happens you wait for the quieter moments to get a finger on the plot.

Batman works alone. He wears black. He doesn't do ships ("as in relationships"). He's a loner and he likes it that way. He gets off on defending Gotham City as the vigilante go-to-guy, the reclusive multimillionaire who doesn't do interviews or rom-coms. Anything remotely touchy feely is off limits and his greatest fear "is being part of a family again." His password is "ironmansucks".

If he's an emotional screw up, check out The Joker. He has a face like a six-year-old's art project. He lives in a bad place with all the enemies of decency, obsessed with The Bat. He doesn't want the dude dead. He wants him to admit that he hates The J more than any of the other deranged dressers. Weird, or what?

If it was just these two with a handful of support staff, such as Arthur, the butt of all butlers, the film would have top billing at Comedy Central. It's everyone else that gets in the way - everyone and everything. Whatever the storyboarders were popping during the creative process it should be on a list of banned substances.

In crash bang lingo this would be dubbed explosivimo, which is another way of saying a wipe out. The sad part is that so many of the one-liners are solid and don't deserve to be exterminated by these runaway visuals.

Reviewed on: 09 Feb 2017
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The LEGO Batman Movie packshot
Batman takes on The Joker and just about every other super (weird) villain in Legoland's latest animated comic extravaganza, otherwise dubbed product placement
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Director: Chris McKay

Writer: Seth Grahame-Smith, Chris McKenna, Erik Sommers, Jared Stern, John Whittington

Starring: voices of Will Arnett, Zach Galifianakis, Rosario Dawson, Michael Cera, Ralph Fiennes, Channing Tatum, Zoƫ Kravitz, Jonah Hill, Seth Green, Jenny Slate, Adam Devine

Year: 2017

Runtime: 104 minutes

BBFC: U - Universal

Country: US, Denmark

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