Even after the amazingness that was The Lego Movie, I wasn't particularly sold... then came The Lego Batman Movie, which was also great. Somewhere along the way I relented, because, really, these movies have a good track record so far.
And The Lego Ninjago Movie is... okay. I mean it's not bad. It's gorgeous to look at, but it just doesn't feel like it lives up to the level of the previous two movies.
Starting with the good stuff though...
This movie looks sensational. Everything that made the previous two movies look good, this movie ramps up to about 300. I will say that I do miss the "everything is made of Lego" aesthetic from the first movie though... where water and smoke and cloud and just about everything else is made of Lego.
However I get why that doesn't always feel practical, or always make sense for the movie. And there's very little about the visuals of this movie that don't feel refined and polished. The water effects alone... amazing. There are literally scenes where I would swear that they filmed practically, even though I know they couldn't have. Even the (mild, if you haven't seen the commercials for the movie this may be news to you, spoilers) giant cat that appears about halfway through feels organic and real, and I really don't know how much of it is practical versus CGI, but my thought it that all those scenes are about 50/50.
The voice acting is solid too... there's no particular stand-outs, but by the same token, nobody's voice really sticks out as "hey it's that person from that thing"... well, except Jackie Chan, but I'll get to that in a minute.
I also loved the way they did the opening titles, in that old Kung-Fu movie style... it sets up the world nicely and throws you into mindset of the world right away. And while the closing song is no "Everything is Awesome", it is nicely bizarre.
The opening and closing of the movie are a little... m'eh to be honest. I know what they were going for, setting up a Lego Movie/Neverending Story/Karate Kid kind of vibe, but honestly the two parts of the story (the kid feeling excluded from his friends in the real world and Lloyd's story within the movie) don't really interlock in the way that they probably should. Also, frontloading the idea of the real world into the movie just feels weird for some reason.
Maybe it will go over great with their actual target audience, pre-teen boys, but personally I think the movie would have been stronger without it. I also feel like it may have just been that since they had Jackie Chan in their movie they wanted him to do real life Jackie Chan stuff, so that gets crammed into the front of the movie (my suspicion for this stems mostly from the fact that they use outtakes of that one quick scene at the end of the movie, so clearly it was important to them). Also speaking of their target audience, this is much more a property that they will be aware of and care about, as it's relatively new in the Lego timeline and doesn't have a lot of nostalgia attached to it.
Overall, story is really not this movie's strongest asset. Compared to the other two it just feels a bit lackluster... it doesn't seem as funny, or as moving, or any of that. Which, again, doesn't mean that it's bad, it's enjoyable and has the odd laugh at times, it just doesn't compare favourably when you put it up against its predecessors.
It also did what a lot of "superhero team" movies tend to do, fail to give anybody but the "lead" character anything resembling a personality or any kind of backstory/development. Yes, we get a little bit about each of them, but they're more background to Lloyd and his story. If you were to compare it to something like Big Hero 6 for example, which is possibly the closest tonally, that team each have something unique and ongoing about their character and they each get moments later in the movie to shine. Ninjago gives each character half a line of character and an element and leaves it at that. And they don't even seem to have very much of a relationship to either each other or to Lloyd. There is literally a moment towards the end of the second act where all of the other characters are essentially shoved offscreen so the two leads can have a conversation.
Yes, the fact that Garmadon, the bad guy, and Lloyd are father and son and have a complicated relationship that isn't the typical "good guy stops the bad guy" storyline from this style of movie is to be applauded, as is the fact that they team up in a fairly friction-less way. It's just disappointing that it lacks the emotional impact it really needed to go from okay to great.
It's clear that while the previous two Lego movies were catering to a much wider audience, this one seems to know exactly who it's audience is and has tailored a movie for them. Which is fine, it's just disappointing given that previous outings did all of that and then more.
yani's rating: 3 ninja mechs out of 5
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