Lego Movie 2
Just like in the life of boys, puberty looms over the Lego Movie 2 like a low, wet cloud. You can feel it, it’s always there, it makes everything different, and yet you have to soldier on as though nothing has changed. It’s been a long time since it happened to me. I’m pretty sure my voice is done changing. Yet, I still get a secret thrill every time I take off my pants and see again that my balls have dropped. I made it through! I’m a grown up now! Puberty is the last thing in my life I successfully completed, and Mrs. Filthy finds curly little hairs in the bathroom, the carpet and the oatmeal to prove it.
Puberty isn’t explicitly mentioned in the Lego Movie 2; it isn’t about a boy suddenly swinging uncontrolled boners that keep knocking down his brick-built towers. Rather, the movie addresses the other changes, the transition from innocent childhood things to, uh, less innocent childhood. How testosterone makes a boy’s mind go from being sweet and innocent to one who likes to blow shit up and torment others. It’s about the battle within a kid between what he was and the aggressive urges that take hold of him and can turn him into a little prick.
The first Lego movie was told almost entirely through the lens of the Legos and the boy’s imagination. It ended when a father and son reached an agreement that Legos are for play. The father liked to build, glue and then admire. The boy wanted to build, rebuild, and reimagine, make towers into spaceships and then those spaceships into double-decker sofas. Ultimately, the father agreed to let the boy play with his toys, but on the condition that the boy let his younger sister play, too. This, I thought, was bullshit. If I had a kid I would never, ever let him play with my stuff. If he wants toys he should go find himself a wife who puts up with his crap and occasionally gives him a little money so she can have a few minutes of peace, just like I did.
Toys aren’t free, motherfucker.
Anyway, Lego Movie 2 picks up five years later. That young boy is now an adolescent. His interests have veered toward apocalyptic scenes of desolation, despair and armored vehicles. Destruction is now as fun as creation. His mind is a battlefield between what he loved and these new ideas of toughness and machismo. He doesn’t understand the change. Like some, he may never come to grips with being a man. They make lift-kits for trucks, MAGA hats, assault rifles and bumper stickers of Calvin peeing on shit for guys like that.
When the little sister takes some of her brother’s Legos, all hell breaks loose. In the Lego world the boy’s Lego alter ego, the still innocent Emmitt (Chris Pratt) goes on a quest, out of the basement, up the stairs, and into his sister’s pink domain, to rescue the purloined mini-figures, which include a pirate, a cat, Batman (Will Arnett) and his rebellious best friend Lucy Wildstyle (Elizabeth Banks). They are going to be used in some sort of elaborate wedding celebration orchestrated by the sister.
On his quest, Emmitt meets Rex Dangervest, who sounds like him but with a deeper voice, looks like him but with stubble, and who urges Emmitt to destroy. Rex convinces Emmitt that the citizens of the Sistah Solar System are evil and that the only way to stop that is by smashing bricks. Doing so will prove his manhood. In the meantime, Batman, Wildstyle, the pirate and kitty are having a damn good time in the Sistah Solar System. In fact, Batman is going to be the groom.
There is music, sadly, designed to be even more catchy than that “Everything is Awesome” song from the first movie. There is a special place in hell for people who exploit the stupidity of children through song. It’s the same special place insurance ad writers go.
Happily, though, there is also a shitload of good gags that probably feel subversive to the movie’s young boy audience. For example, a sparkly vampire talks about the appeal of his mopeyness and that he wears women’s jeans. A Lego banana keeps slipping on himself. Duplos scarf down Legos like a church group at the shrimp bowl in a Golden Corral.
The best thing about the Lego Movie 2 is that kids aren’t patronized. The theme, even if it treads into the waters of the Toy Story franchise about growing up, is a real issue, particularly for boys who struggle to understand why they don’t like the same things they used to. I remember going on the spinning strawberries at a carnival when I was 22 and realizing just before I puked that it was not as much fun as I remembered. I wondered if that meant I had grown up, or if the moms giving me dirty looks were just meaner than usual. I still don’t know; there were and still are no articles on the Internet about this topic. Maybe they can make Lego Movie 3 about that.
The jokes, too, are good. Well, many are. A shitload get thrown up at the screen, especially the same tired “Batman is secretly lonely” schtick. But for the most part, the gags probably made the writers laugh, which is more than I can say for most kids’ movies. In most, the moviemakers know they’re serving up lazy tripe. But they expect kids to be dumb enough to laugh. So, kudos to anything that respects a kids’ intelligence. As I have learned, if you don’t, they will tie you to a pole and steal your underwear while you’re passed out.
The biggest letdown to the Lego Movie 2 is the semi-sappy and prolonged ending. The first story was told almost entirely with Legos and concluded with a sweet, brief coda. This time, the kids in control are shown more, and dominate the end of the story. The brother and sister learn to get along, and to share. That’s nice and all, but also total horseshit. Too easy and too predictable.
It is entirely possible for siblings to hold tiny grudges their entire lives, and for every action they take to be informed by the one time a sister poked a pin into the other’s favorite bouncy ball. Getting along is overrated and also unlikely. Or, temporary.
Three Fingers for the Lego Movie 2. I wish more good movies were made to tell us what to expect from our changing bodies. I have so much still to learn.