THE LEGO MOVIE Is a Triumphant, Imaginative, Surprisingly Deep Meta-Adventure

THE LEGO MOVIE Review:

- How did this happen? I don't think anyone anticipated that THE LEGO MOVIE would turn out not just to be an instant-classic animated movie, but one of the most fun family films in years. And yet, thanks to a funny, fantastic script, eye-popping animation, and an all-star voice cast, this film defied the odds and is not just better than it had any right to be, but a great film by any measure.

THE LEGO MOVIE comes to us from the team of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, who have brought humor and heart to movies as diverse as the animated Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and the recent, raunchy, 21 Jump Street reboot. These guys are good - very good - at what they do. And they help to ensure that The Lego Movie is visually dynamic, but also incredibly clever and smart.

The genius originates from the script by Lord, Miller, and Dan and Kevin Hageman. I can't stress enough: the script to this film is flat-out brilliant. The way that it dispenses critical information in a way that's completely economical - but also super-imaginative and super-funny - is worthy of the highest praise. I could go on and on, but I'll talk for a second about the movie's fantastic premise ...

The script imagines a Lego world that has become a sort of mass-delusional authoritarian dystopia, in which the rank-and-file workers have been brainwashed into a sort of gleeful delirium. All of these little yellow Lego people live their lives per their designated instructions - never deviating from the rules that dictate every aspect of their existence. The populace is lorded over by President Business (voiced by Will Ferrell), who poses as a benevolent leader, but who is secretly Lord Business - a scheming, evil mastermind whose ultimate goal is to impose total order to every Lego land, eliminating all individuality, randomness, chaos, and creativity. When a regular-joe builder named Emmett (Chris Pratt) deviates from his usual rule-regulated routine, his eyes begin to open to the oppressive nature of his world. He's taken in by rebellious, rainbow-haired Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks), who believes that he might just be the Chosen One prophesied by rebel leader Vitruvius  (Morgan Freeman). Joined by a motley crew of freedom fighters, Emmett and company formulate a plan to end the tyrannical reign of Lord Business and bring individuality and creativity back to their world.

What takes the story to another level is how well the script both plays with the well-worn tropes of the classic "chosen one vs. evil empire" story. The film is super aware not just of itself, but of the pop-culture multiverse from which it draws inspiration. This manifests not just on a meta level, but on a really fun surface level. We get a Lego world where Emmett and Wyldstyle exist alongside the likes of Batman (she's dating him), Gandalf, Dumbledore, Han Solo, Shaquille O'Neal, and many, many more. There hasn't been this sort of gloriously crazed pop-culture character mash-up since the days of Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

But again, the film isn't just satisfied to have these characters cameo. This version of Batman, for example - hilariously voiced by Will Arnett - is a brilliant parody of what Batman has become in pop-culture in recent years - an uberconfident, all-powerful guy who's actually sort of a jerk. While Batman is the most prominent pop-cult character in the film, every appearance is utilized for maximum effect. The Star Wars cameos absolutely kill. The other superheroes that pop-up? Hilarious.

But really, the heart and soul of the film is Emmett. And man, Chris Pratt just nails it - bringing the same sort of lovable charm he shows each week as Andy on Parks and Recreation. But again, what makes Emmett so great is that he's *not* just a Luke Sywalker clone. Despite being hailed as a chosen one, Emmett never loses his averageness, his goofiness, or his dogged and legitimate love for following instructions. THE LEGO MOVIE, in that respect, never devolves into cliche. The movie is always one step ahead, and instead of Emmett having to step up and embrace some previously-unfathomable destiny, he instead realizes that he's got all the tools he needs to make a difference - he just needs to cleverly apply them to the situation at hand.

What's remarkable is that Emmett, Wyldstyle, Lord Business, and the other main characters of the film have remarkable dimension. Even side characters like Liam Neeson's Bad Cop/Good Cop, or Charlie Day's Benny the 80's Spaceman have unexpected depth.

The movie puts character first, but it also takes on some really big, really heady stuff. The opening scene of the film is a brilliant montage, showing us the preternaturally-happy residents of the Lego world, cheerfully singing the "Everything Is Awesome" song and going about their daily routines. But everything feels artificial and forced, and the characters act so unquestioningly and obediently that their is the unmistakable scent of dystopia in the air. Of course, this is all a very, very sly take on our world, the real world. In one brilliant opening sequence, these cartoon characters have completely and brilliantly skewered our oft-times conformist, consumerist culture. And not only that, but they've dissected that intangible sense of creativity and freedom that is inherent in children, but lost in adults. It's the creativity that makes playing with toys like Legos a joy, and it's that same creativity that Lord Business - the quintessential "adult" of this world - is intent on eliminating.

And man, the movie does a great job of getting at these big, satirical, philosophical issues early on. But later, the film flips the switch and goes somewhere very unexpected: the real world. Now, this could have been a huge mistake if handled indelicately. But when THE LEGO MOVIE suddenly morphs into live-action, and we see the human embodiment of Lord Business - Will Ferrell - as not an evil, power-mad dictator, but as a regular (if slightly OCD) dad ... well, it's then that the film introduces a very real, emotional element to the plotline. The emotional stakes of the movie are driven home: Emmett and Wyldstyle's quest is that of all of us: to hold on to our childlike impulses and creativity and individuality in the adult world. And Lord Business is the at-times well-meaning, but ultimately oppressive force of adulthood, of consumerism, of conformity. Holy $%&# - THE LEGO MOVIE isn't messing around, people.

THE LEGO MOVIE can be watched and enjoyed completely at a surface level. It's got whiz-bang action scenes, colorful characters, rapid-fire and insanely clever jokes, and more pop-culture references and parodies that you can shake a stick at (I haven't even touched on how cool the animation is - looking sleek and shiny yet also capturing an almost stop-motion feel that perfectly fits the  That winning combo alone would make it one hell of an enjoyable animated film. But beyond that, there is some seriously smart stuff going on in this film. It's a movie that on a micro level looks at how people play with Legos, but on a macro level looks at how we change from children to adults and what we lose in the process. It tells that story and addresses such weighty themes with surprising clarity of purpose and emotional depth. The same kind of pangs you might have felt while watching the Toy Story films are very much present here. Everyone and anyone who was ever, once, a kid playing with Legos will feel an instant sense of recognition while watching this film. And yes, some of that will be surface level - nostalgia for 80's spaceman Legos, etc. But some will come about in those real-world scenes between a father and son, scenes that pit an adult's need for order and logic against a kid's desire for wonderment and imagination and no-limits.

The fact that the movie works on so many levels is a pretty amazing and impressive triumph. I guess it's sort of embodied and encapsulated by the "Everything Is Awesome" song. One one level: uber-catchy pop song. On another level, early in the film: an oppressive hive-mind slave-song - the self-medicated, self-delusional cry of the worker bee. And finally, by the film's end, it morphs into a triumphant rallying cry - a reassurance that everything can and will be okay, even if it's imperfect and unpredictable and chaotic.

And yeah, all of this is in - of all things - The Lego Movie - which might just be the best animated film of the last few years. Who would ever have predicted that?

My Grade: A-

ANCHORMAN 2 Is I'm Ron Bergundy?

ANCHORMAN 2 Review:

- I remember being skeptical going into the first Anchorman. Up until then, I was only mildly a fan of Will Ferrell, and hadn't loved the sorts of cheap-laugh fratboy antics he'd become known for in movies like Old School. But Anchorman - which teamed Ferrell with SNL writer Adam McKay - brought Ferrell back to the style of comedy that had resulted in his funniest moments on Saturday Night Live: big, weird, crazy, out-there. Anchorman was so funny because it dared to ditch frat humor for absurdist humor - lampooning 70's-era alpha-male bravado while also not being afraid to throw in randomness like talking dogs and ultra-violent gang fights between rival teams of newsmen. Anchorman won me over, and it opened up the door for further hilarious Ferrell-McKay collaborations like Talladega Nights and Step Brothers. Suddenly, Anchorman - a movie that felt like Ferrell and McKay were getting away with something - became the template for more, increasingly absurdist comedies. I suspect that the success of Anchorman also opened up the door for guys like Seth Rogen and Adam Goldberg, David Wain, and others to do more over-the-top comedies at big studios, like This Is The End and Role Models. Sort of awesome, in my opinion. But funny in that Anchorman 2, a movie that its studio didn't even want to fund for many years, ended up becoming one of the most hyped and hotly-anticipated comedy sequels of all time. Weird, random humor becoming the norm? I'm okay with that.

So how is ANCHORMAN 2? It's funny - really funny. And it goes even bigger and broader than Part 1, with numerous bits that are very random and oddball and out there. The crack team of comic actors from Part 1 - Ferrell, Paul Rudd, Steve Carell, David Koechner, and Christina Applegate - are all back, and in fine form. And when you've got such a talented line-up of comedians, it's hard to go wrong. Carell, as loony weatherman Brick, gets a lot of big moments in this one, including a hilariously insane romance with an equally loony Kristin Wiig. Other notables joining the cast include Meagan Goode as Ron Bergundy's tough-customer new boss, and James Marsden as a slick rival reporter.

Interestingly, just as the first Anchorman tried to tell a story that was sort of socially relevant to its period setting (where Applegate's Veronica Corningstone caused upheaval at the local news station by being its first female anchor), so too does the sequel try to place Ron Bergundy and co. in the context of history. This time, it's 1980, and 24 hour cable news emerges as a competitor to the networks. After getting fired by his boss at the network - passed over for a promotion in favor of Veronica - a distraught Ron gets a second chance, when he's offered a shot at being a cable news anchor. Ron gets his old team back together, and they beat the odds and rack up ratings by inventing the sorts of schlock-tactic "news" coverage (car chases, for one) that is commonplace today.

Where ANCHORMAN 2 hurts itself is by trying to do too much at once. I feel like Ferrell and McKay are trying to have their cake and eat it too, by indulging in both a lot of media satire and social commentary-comedy, yet still taking extended side-trips into the wacky and absurd. We go from scenes that take not-so-subtle jabs at today's 24-hour news cycle, to scenes where Ron Burgundy nurses a wounded baby shark back to health and sings a song about it. There's interoffice rivalry with James Marsden's character, and romantic rivalry, with Veronica taking up with a new man (an on-point Greg Kinnear) following a falling-out with Ron, and Ron taking up with his new boss, Linda. The result is a long and at times rambling comedy that tries to do a LOT, without necessarily having a single through-line to tie it all together. By the time the movie ends, you start to wonder what the movie was actually *about* to begin with.

And that's not to say that it had to be about anything. But McKay and Ferrell, as mentioned, squeeze in a ton of plot. Not content to *just* be a riff on the modern era of news, this film packs everything and the kitchen sink into its two hour runtime. This means that when scenes don't elicit big laughs, they tend to really bomb, because they're often disconnected from the rest of the story. One example: when the movie plays the race card and has Ron attend an awkward dinner with Linda's African-American family, the jokes are more cringe-worthy than laugh-worthy. And the fact that the scene mostly bombs, combined with how tangential it is to the main plot, makes you wonder why it didn't get chopped in the editing room.

That said, when the jokes work, they often work big. From Carell and Wiig's oddball pairing, to a gang-fight scene that rivals the first movie's for sheer audacity and shock-value (and in terms of applause-worthy cameos), the movie gets more than enough belly laughs to make it a worthwhile watch. I'm a fan of the random stuff, so I didn't mind the film indulging in it. Honestly, I think Ferrell and McKay are funnier when they're going broad than when they try to do satire. And to that end, I have mixed feelings about, but ultimately support, the extended sequence in which Ron Bergundy goes blind, and becomes a lighthouse-dwelling hermit. On one hand, it comes so late in the movie that part of you thinks "really? they're doing this *now*?". And yet, the funniest moments of the whole film, I think, come as Ron struggles to adjust to being blind in the most hilariously misguided fashion imaginable. The whole thing comes off as an extended SNL sketch randomly thown into the middle of an Anchorman movie. And yet, it's hilarious, so it's hard to find fault. I guess you sort of wish Ferrell and McKay could just ditch narrative altogether and do a longform sketch film or something. As is, Anchorman 2 zips back and forth between its various plotlines and numerous divergent bits of randomness. So yes, there's a lot of funny packed in, but there's also a feeling that the movie is a bit overstuffed.

If you dug the first Anchorman, as I did, you can't go wrong in checking out its sequel. It's a funny flick, and I was laughing pretty consistently throughout. If there's to be a third though, I think that it'd wise to go back and re-tool the formula before things go too off the rails. I love seeing movies where it feels like people are getting away with something, but sometimes, more does not always equal better. One equation that does still very much hold up, however, is that Ferrell + McKay = funny. I'm glad that they are out there making weird $#%& like Anchorman.

My Grade: B+

THE CAMPAIGN Is Funny But Lightweight Political Humor

THE CAMPAIGN Review:

- The Campaign is a really funny flick, but it's also a little frustrating. The movie has plenty of big laughs, and Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis are reliably hilarious. So why that frustration? Only because the movie seems to really want to be a biting satire of American politics, and it has moments that give us a glimpse of the sort of movie this could have been if it went just a bit darker and edgier. Most of the time though, the film is content to just be over-the-top and broad. That leads to some memorable gags, but it also makes the movie feel like empty calories when it might have had a little more meat. Earlier this year, I thought The Dictator was an underrated, fairly scathing satire that really nailed the balance between crazy comedy and on-point social commentary. This one feels a little tamer and a little more pandering to the cheap seats.

In THE CAMPAIGN, Ferrell plays Cam Brady - who is essentially Ron Bergundy meets Jon Edwards. Brady is a multi-term congressman who keeps winning elections despite his reputation for being a womanizing, bribe-taking, double-talking sleazeball. He's a local institution, and people tend to forgive him his sins because, hey, he's a consummate politician and talks a good game. Plus, there's the convenient fact that he's long run unopposed in his district. That changes when the wealthy Motch Brothers (obvious analogs for the Koch Brothers) decide to find themselves a puppet candidate to usurp Brady. They want someone who will carry out their money-grabbing plan to essentially sell off the district's land to the Chinese, making it ground zero for cheap labor and outsourced industry. To do their bidding, they select Marty Huggins. Marty comes from a prominent and wealthy local family - his father is a longtime associate of the Motch's. But Marty himself, as played by Galifianakis, is a total oddball - Ned Flanders meets Richard Simmons meets that one weird uncle you have. Huggins is a local boy who actually grew up with Brady, and he loves his home - so much so that his day job is working as a local tour guide. In any case, Huggins sees the Motch Brothers' offer as the opportunity to finally do his family proud and make something of himself (see: the plot of Chris Farley classic Black Sheep) - and he's too naive to understand the extent to which he's being manipulated by the businessmen brothers. Soon, Brady and Huggins are in a knock-down, dragout political battle, with Brady having to dig dep into his bag of dirty tricks, and Huggins being forced to go on the attack and match Brady at his own game.

Ferrell and Galifianakis are both in fine form here. While Ferrell's character resembles others he's played before (in addition to Ron Bergundy, I also saw a lot of Ashley Schafer from Eastbound and Down), he's so good at playing these sort of gassed-up egomaniac blowhard types that you can't fault him for going back to that well. But Ferrell's line-delivery, done in a John Edwards-esque drawl, is spot-on. Galifianakis gives Huggins an effeminate demeanor and a Sunday School teacher disposition, and he too is very, very funny here. Huggins is certainly the more multidimensional of the two characters, and Galifianakis does a nice job of making him more than just a simple goofball.

The supporting cast is also filled with A-list comedic talents. John Lithgow and Dan Aykroyd play the Motch Brothers. Sarah Baker is hilarious and a huge scene-stealer as Marty's wife Mitzy. Brian Cox is always great, and he is great again here as Marty's gruff father. Dylan McDermot is quite good as the Motch's go-to hatchet man, who is brought in to run Marty's campaign and give him am image and lifestyle makeover. Jason Sudeikis pops up as Cam's right-hand man. And Jack McBrayer has a small but memorable cameo. Still, so much of the focus is on Cam and Marty that it does occasionally feel like supporting players get the short shrift. In particular, was hoping for some more great lines or moments from Lithgow and Aykroyd.

It's funny though, because while the movie's political satire feels a bit soft, it hits a homerun when it comes to pushing the envelope of shock humor. The movie's best and funniest scenes are when it goes blue, eliciting huge belly laughs from the perverse lengths it goes to comedically. Thought the dinner table scene in Talladega Nights was uproarious? Wait until you see the dinner table scenes in this one. Similarly, a raunchy campaign ad created by Cam Brady is a highlight - if only for how far it goes down the proverbial rabbit hole. Huge props go to Sarah Baker as Mitzi, as well as to the child actors who play Marty's kids, for delivering some particularly eye-popping lines with brilliant commitment and sincerity.

The movie starts out with a ton of momentum, and it continues to get big laughs as it enters into its second act. In turn, as we see Marty evolve his image, and Brady try to turn negative PR into a positive, we get some moments of genuinely funny and sharp political satire. As the film goes on though, I felt it lost some steam, especially as it started to become mired in cliches and multiple "big, inspirational speech" moments. Ultimately, the wind seems to have gone out of the sales a bit by the time we get to the closing credits. At first, the fact that neither Marty nor Cam knows a thing about actual politics is funny and part of the move's overarching joke. But eventually it wears thing, because it feels like a convenient way for the movie's comedy to avoid tackling any issues of substance. It makes the movie - as opposed to the Dictator, for example - feel a bit lightweight. Like everyone involved agreed that politicians were a ripe target for comedy, but couldn't figure out why, exactly, beyond the fact that politics tends to be more about style than substance.

The Campaign may not be brilliant satire, but it is plenty funny, and like I said, it's got some awesome gags that are more than watercooler-worthy. This is another solid entry in the Ferrell canon - but given the more pointed politcal stuff he's done (his George W. Bush parodies, for one), I was hoping for something with a bit more to say.

My Grade: B