The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part starts off from the cliffhanger finale of the first film. That film ended when aliens from the planet Duplon land on the Lego world and announce their plans to destroy everything. The present film, set five years into the future, shows that the citizens of Bricksburg rallied together to defeat that threat. However, the aliens still keep coming and have a habit of destroying anything new and shining. The city now has a post-Apocalypse look a la the landscape from the Mad Max films and hence is renamed Apocalypseburg. Its citizens have become toughened avatars of themselves. The only one who feels everything is still awesome is Emmet (Chris Pratt). At this juncture, an envoy from the Systar System, General Mayhem (Stephanie Beatriz) barges in and kidnaps Lucy/Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks), Batman (Will Arnett), Unikitty (Alison Brie), Benny (Charlie Day) and MetalBeard (Nick Offerman). She takes them to her ruler Queen Watevra Wa’Nabi (Tiffany Haddish), who wants to marry Batman. Now it’s up to Emmet (Chris Pratt) and his newfound ally Rex Dangervest (Chris Pratt in dual roles) to rescue his friends and stop Ar-mom-ageddon from happening.
Like in the first film, Superman and Justice League make a cameo. Plus a lot of bizarre characters, like roller-skating dinosaurs, glittering vampires, a banana having balance issues and an icecream cone who doesn’t like PDA are thrown in the mix. Then there are ‘cameos’ from as diverse people as Bruce Willis, Abraham Lincoln to US supreme court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The human actors include Finn (Jadon Sand), and his little sister Bianca (Brooklynn Prince), as well as their unnamed mother (Maya Rudolph). The references to various movies and pop culture icons (some of them not necessarily recognised by children) keep coming in so fast that we have a hard time catching up. But somehow, the first film’s freshness gets lost in the second. We get the feeling of having seen it all before done better. Most of the lines are funny so we keep laughing but the x factor, the genuine buzz, of the original film is missing.
The first film was about letting a child exercise his imagination. The second builds on the theme but adds layers like the pangs of growing up, of losing one’s innocence, and of toughening up because the world is unfair to the initial premise. The film shows that growing up shouldn’t mean losing all touch with our innocence. We shouldn’t toughen up just because the world expects us to do so and lose our best qualities in the process. It also makes a case for not losing one’s optimism even in the face of adversity and also talks about the importance of family and the bond between siblings. Thankfully, everything is done in a fun, non-preachy way. The first film’s standout song was Everything is awesome. Here a new catchy song, predictably called Catchy song, which claims you can’t get it out of your head gets added. Another gimmicky song is Super cool, playing over the end credits, which makes fun of the end credits in a sporting way.
The animation, needless to say, is world class. The makers manage to bridge the gap between the real and imaginary worlds through an interesting mix of technology, camera work and editing. All-in-all, much like it's predecessor, this sequel too tries to target children of all ages. And mostly, it does deliver. Whether it'll become a worldwide phenomenon like the first and break records remains to be seen.
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