The Lego Movie
Aw, did I fool you? That’s the name of the theme song of The Lego Movie. I didn’t mean that the movie itself was awesome.
It was very good—don’t get me wrong—but not as awesome as people might say. The redeeming qualities of the movie include its wonderful use of Legos, its humor, and its surprise story arc (which occurs near the end of the film and I won’t give it away). All of this made it a fun way to pass the time.
That said, the film really lacked sympathetic characters until the end. It was really difficult to give a care about what happened to anyone; in fact, I found myself wishing that a couple of characters would just be killed off, even though it’s a children’s movie!
My main complaint in movies—particularly kids’ movies—is present in this one, too. There’s just not enough women. Between all of the main characters, there’s really only one—two if you count the unicorn kitty. It also fails the Bechdel test, and the main female character pretty much hangs on the coattails of her boyfriend throughout the film. She also represents a prize to be won, a common barf-o-rific theme in, well, all movies, because girls = rewards for heroes. Although this character does have some wonderful heroic and inventive moments, overall she still isn’t the star (even though she figures out how to save everyone—maybe we should start calling this the Hermione Syndrome?) and her gender is far from represented in the film.
Given my initial low expectations for the movie, I wasn’t all that disappointed. My sister said she loved it, which raised my hopes a bit. Like I said, it was an enjoyable way to pass the time—especially if you are male and used to media representing your gender in copious amounts. When you’re a girl, well, it’s really hard to not notice that about one percent of the movie’s population sort-of represents you.
Photo courtesy of Wikipedia