Movie Review: The Lego Batman Movie

The Lego Batman Movie proves Ben Affleck should just hand the cowl and Batarang to Will Arnett already.

In the beginning, there was The Lego Movie, and we saw that it was good.

Now there is The Lego Batman Movie, and it too is good, if a little less so.

Warner Bros and the Danish block-assemblers at Lego have fluked upon a winning cinematic combination, impressing audiences who maybe expected opportunistic and lame animated flicks, and were instead delighted by their innovative spirit, comic self-awareness and surprisingly subversive themes.

Yet, unlike with Lego bricks themselves, adding one piece of intellectual property onto another isn’t a foolproof recipe for success; it’s creative Jenga. Right now, their corporate tower of synergy stands tall, unshaken, but we’ll see what happens later this year with The Lego Ninjago Movie (which, as far as names go, is 50 per cent nonsense).

Will Arnett returns for The Lego Batman Movie to voice Bruce Wayne, aka the brooding, emo anti-hero of Gotham City and, now, star of his own motion picture: Lego Batman. It's an upgrade from his appearance in The Lego Movie , where he was simply a jerk boyfriend; Bats was basically playing the Lego equivalent of Bradley Cooper in Wedding Crashers.

Here, after defeating The Joker (Zach Galifianakis), Harley Quinn (Jenny Slate) and the rest of his nemeses for the umpteenth time, Batman retreats to his Batcave, sullen and empty. He soothes himself by watching Jerry Maguire alone in his personal theatre, laughing uproariously at its most earnest scenes. Look, even Cameron Crowe would admit his movies have aged poorly, but scoffing in the face of Renée Zellweger is truly evidence of someone embarking on a dark (k)night of the soul.

His world is upended when Commissioner Barbara Gordon (Rosario Dawson) announces she’s not so keen on relying solely on Batman, Gotham’s masked vigilante, for the city's protection anymore; she wants to work with him, instead. Add to that Bruce’s accidental adoption of wide-eyed orphan Dick Grayson (Michael Cera), and suddenly Batman has more colleagues and family than he ever asked for. His butler, Alfred (Ralph Fiennes), sees an opportunity for personal growth. That might be too much to ask from a character who’s largely stayed the same for seventy-plus years (except for that one “weird” period in the ‘60s, Batman recalls, over footage of Adam West doing the Batusi).

There are plenty more in-jokes for Bat fans, as well as references to Warner Bros’ other minable properties. (As in a regular playroom—or a boardroom's wildest fantasies—Batman figurines intermingle with characters from The Matrix, Lord of the Rings and Gremlins.)

Charmingly clunky animation aside, the primary reason to see The Lego Batman Movie is to hear the vocal performances. Arnett is gravelly, tortured and hilarious; he proves he can anchor a movie, and not merely disrupt it as an amusing interloper (though, Bojack Horseman first showed he could flex dramatic muscles in animation). Cera, who's been MIA from screens, is a welcome, cheerful addition, and Galifianakis, playing the Joker like Batman’s scorned lover, puts Jared Leto to shame, though, in fairness, Leto had already done much of the legwork there.

That said, this movie just isn’t quite as funny, surprising, rebellious or emotionally resonant as The Lego Movie. Director Chris McKay, an editor on the previous instalment, makes action his priority here. Recreating the kinetic energy of the original (and even recalling French stop-motion fever dream A Town Called Panic), McKay can at least boast some of the most exhilarating action set pieces featuring Batman since The Dark Knight.

Oh, and another thing this has in common with A Town Called Panic and the original Lego Movie is that it gave me a splitting headache. I enjoyed my time in the cinema, but it still called for some painkillers afterwards. All this colour and movement? It'd drive a sane person batty.

4/5

In cinemas March 30. Rated PG for mild themes and animated violence.

Photo: Warner Bros