Review: The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part

The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part had a lot to live up to when looking at the success of 2015’s The Lego Movie. There was a part of me that was excited beforehand, but as always, I tried to hold reasonable expectations since it’s usually hard to replicate the same level of success with sequels. Although that was the mindset I took into it, I still walked away a bit disappointed. And in reality, it didn’t have much to do with comparing it to the first one.

The heroes of Bricksburg reunite in an effort to save their city from a new intruder from outer space. While everything used to be awesome in this land, things have taken a turn for the worse because of the arrival of these new threats. To overcome and reestablish the bliss that they once knew, Emmet (Chris Pratt), Lucy (Elizabeth Banks), Batman (Will Arnett) and the rest of their friends must ban together and journey to an unexplored world that could change life as they know it forever.

One of the primary features that will determine how much you enjoy The Lego Movie 2 is the comedy. With movies like this, it’s important that this stuff connects as much as possible since its main goal is to offer a good time while going on a mostly child safe adventure. And while I believe there will be people who believe they receive that completely with this film, I can’t say that I was entirely impressed.

The reason for that is because the jokes simply aren’t that consistently funny. This is especially true for the early portions. To make things worse, there are plenty of instances where the jokes are forced into the movie. In these moments, I found that it only served as interference with the story that’s being told. When you see it for yourself, you’ll see that they would literally stop the story just to tell jokes that don’t belong and aren’t usually all that amusing.

I also took issue with them going to the real world as often as they do. This happens in the first Lego Movie as well, but it was used as a way to include a twist and explain what was going on toward the end. Doing it this way worked and allowed for those revelations to mean something. By taking this approach, it also manages to pull everything together quite nicely. 

In the second movie, this same method is used to an extent, but it’s done repeatedly and somewhat pulls you out of what’s going on when it’s supposed to do the opposite. The thing is, we can already figure out what’s happening based on what we get in the first act and what we got in The Lego Movie. There was no need to constantly go back and show us who is controlling the everything so frequently.

I guess there was a way to keep this part in the movie. It would have taken some work and maybe could have allowed for the twists that were in the original to still be included to some degree. But because they were busy revealing everything throughout, you see most of this stuff coming. This doesn’t take away all of the movie’s entertainment value, but it does make it less thrilling and impactful.

While most of the twists were removed because of this, there is one that remained. I just wish it was a good one that we benefitted from. One of my issues with this particular twist is that including it adds to the run time of a movie that was already feeling a bit stretched out. Because of this, the unnecessary jokes, and the musical numbers, The Lego Movie 2 felt a little longer than it needed to be and was a little slow at times.

And like the jokes and the musical numbers, this twist had no real reason to be to here. Not only does it not fit, the swerve that they forced in also changes the trajectory of the franchise and its spinoffs in a few ways. If they would have stayed on the course, it would have made more sense and made for an easy transition into future films. Since they didn’t, they may have complicated things while making what we get from now on less fluid.

Although I don’t dislike it, I will say The Lego Movie 2 doesn’t come all that close to meeting the standard set by its predecessor. On its own, it’s fine and will likely entertain most people. In order for you to give yourself a chance to enjoy it more, it’s best not to compare it to the other Lego movies (The Lego Batman Movie included) that came before it. If you just go in there hoping to see a decent animated movie, you could be thoroughly amused by this obviously inferior sequel.

Rating: PG

Director: Mike Mitchell

Cast:
Chris Pratt
Elizabeth Banks
Will Arnett
Tiffany Haddish
Stephanie Beatriz
Alison Brie
Nick Offerman
Charlie Day
Maya Rudolph

Film Length: 106 minutes

Release Date: February 8, 2019

Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures