Critics In Love With New Satire The Lego Batman Movie

The unheralded success of The Lego Movie in 2014 helped to achieve two points. The first of which was bringing the popular plastic toys onto the big screen. The second of was creating a comical version of Bruce Wayne/Batman. With The Lego Batman Movie making it's debut on February 10, 2017, the critics are raving about the spinoff that pokes fun at itself while bringing the audience along for the ride.

The Chris McKay film stars Will Arnett, Michael Cera, Rosario Dawson, Ralph Fiennes and Zach Galifianakis in voiceover roles as Warner Animation Group parody the serious character that been on film since 1989. Should the initial reviews be any guide, it will be well worth the price of admission for the whole family.

Uninhibited By Franchise Dilemmas

Will Arnett Lego Batman Movie

Matt Goldberg of Collider argues that the new platform allows the character to branch off into a number of different directions, never bound to one concept that the studio has earmarked for future installments.

"Chris McKay’s movie is free in a way that Batman films have never been before, and it uses that freedom to explore Batman’s ego, fears, and desires," starts Goldberg. "While the surrounding film can at times go off the rails as it explodes into lunacy and IP integration, overall The Lego Batman Movie is a constantly delightful experience that embraces the family dynamic other Batman films have pushed away."

Giving the flick an A- rating, Goldberg explains that the creators are simply giving an unashamed production that celebrates Batman rather than delving into depressing emotional depths.

"When the focus of The Lego Batman Movie stays on Batman and his universe, it’s pretty much brilliant," he remarks. "The satire is bitingly funny and clever, the animation is gorgeous, and the whole thing feels like a love letter with a little bit of a bite. As other creators struggle to figure out how to present Batman and work within the stunted notion of what’s 'cool' for the character, The Lego Batman Movie casts such worries aside and instead goes ahead and celebrates the character in all his paradoxical glory rather than trying to package him for a soulless adventure."

As Quick-Witted As Any Comedy You Will See

With Will Arnett transitioning his comedy across from BoJack Horseman and Arrested Development, Owen Gleiberman from Variety believes that The Lego Batman Movie compares to any comedy going around, or even some classics that have come before.

"The Lego Batman Movie uses the towering plasticity of Lego to tweak a superhero culture (namely, ours) that pretends to be about nobility but is really about the vain delusion of full-time fantasy," writes the reviewer. "Your average Pixar comedy thumbs its nose at a great many things, but The Lego Batman Movie is a helter-skelter lampoon in the daftly exhilarating spirit of Mad magazine and the Naked Gun films. It’s that quick and cutthroat clever and self-knowing. There’s every chance it will soar at the box office, and make no mistake: It deserves to."

Meanwhile, Gersh Kuntzman from NY Daily News says that it was everything the audience would hope it would be for a 4/5 star rating.

"This version feels a lot less like a long advertisement for Lego products than the original, which featured multiple 'here's how to build something cool' segments," he argues. "And Lego Batman uses pop culture better than the original. A scene in which Batman must confront his solitary existence employs Three Dog Night's 'One (Is the Loneliest Number)' to near perfection... The Lego Batman Movie takes the best thing about The Lego Movie — Batman! — and makes him America's new action hero. Take that, Vin Diesel!"

Source: Collider, Variety, NY Daily News

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