LEGO MOVIE – The Adult Child Review – Rants, Raves & Random Things

I remember vividly when I was 10 years old, living in Houston at the time and my mom and I went to the home of one of her friends for a day. Three things about that day have stuck with me through the years; first, it was the first time I ever laid on a waterbed. Secondly, it was the first time I swung on a rope over a river and jumped in. Lastly, her son had a gigantic chest filled to the brim with the largest amount of Legos I had ever seen in my life. I mean it – I literally think he had every Lego set ever created to that point. My eyes bugged out so big they might as well have been hanging out of their sockets.

Before Lego found a second life partnering with popular franchises like Star Wars and DC Comics, they were the one obsession every single one of my friends had next to G.I. Joe, He-Man and Transformers. So it goes without saying that I’ve been waiting for a Lego movie for the better part of 30 years. When I saw they first trailer, it was probably the first time in my kid’s lives next to The Avengers trailer that made me squeal louder them.

This movie was simply – AWESOME! The writers figured out the smartest and most idealistic way to bring these little inanimate, block-shaped figurines into an animated movie that felt plausible and inspired. In fact, I would say that this was a genius bit of storytelling. What I liked most about this movie was that it was self-aware without ever having to blatantly break the 4^th wall. This movie appealed the 10 year old kid, the genre-inspired geek and the humanistic story-appreciating adult that encompasses my varied movie-going interests. On top of that, and probably more importantly, my kids absolutely loved this movie. My middle kid couldn’t stay in her seat she was so excited.

It will be weeks before I can get the main song, “Everything is awesome!” out of my head, but I appreciate that something else besides, “Let it go” can finally dance around and infect the landscape of my subconsciousness. If there is another thing I can also take away from this movie is that I wasn’t alone in my awe and fondness for this franchise. There are scant few blatant children’s movies where I saw couples on dates or groups of adults (no kids) laughing as hard (if not harder) than the kids in the theater. That’s a rare and special feat. They don’t need bring back any of the main characters of this movie to make another, but if they do – bring back Batman. The Dark Knight (as always) stole the show.