Not as Rare as Other Lego Movies
Following March’s excellent The Lego Batman Movie, here comes the year’s second Yellow Brick movie, The Lego Ninjago Movie. I’ll get this out of the way quickly: The Lego Ninjago Movie doesn’t even come close to being in the same ball park as The Lego Movie or The Lego Batman Movie, though its not without its moments of high-energy fun. Geared at much more of a younger audience than its predecessors, it’s a passable distraction for this kids these school holidays, but will more than likely fail to engage a more adult audience like those other pieces of genuinely excellent entertainment.
Ninjago follows the story of the six Ninjago, led by Lloyd (Dave Franco), the Green Ninja. It just so happens that his dad is the evil Lord Garmadon (Justin Theroux), who wants to take over Ninjago City. The plan? To master their Ninja skills in order to, you guessed it, stop him from taking over the world.
Yeah, so there’s absolutely nothing ground breaking here story wise. And while I’m not gonna go into a Lego film expecting Inception levels of plotting, the story here is just not nearly as interesting as it was in the previous Lego films. The whole daddy issues plot line is something that has been done to death, and you really feel that tiredness here. In more simple terms, it’s just not all that funny. In addition, the characters are also not all that interesting. The Ninjago don’t really come together with all their powers until the final third of the film, by which point you’re already kinda…bored. Garmadon is kind of an amusing villain, but he’s surround by other characters that are either bland or underdeveloped.
The film undoubtedly has some fun moments. The animation by Animal Logic is as spectacularly zippy and colourful as ever, and there are some nicely rendered and choreographed action sequences. But as a whole, the film is just not funny enough. Perhaps this is because it’s aimed at more of a younger audience, but the film opts to consistently fall back on repetitive gags and random internet humour (a giant cat, really?), and a great majority of the time, they don’t land.
Its main issue is that it doesn’t really do anything to justify its existence. I hate to keep comparing the film to its predecessors, but those films, despite them very clearly being toy commercials, actually did something to push themselves further than that. The Lego Movie managed to be a surprisingly effective take down of corporate business, while The Lego Batman Movie managed to be the most endearing take on that beloved character in a decade. The Lego Ninjago Movie, meanwhile, doesn’t really have much reason to exist other than to sell toys, which would be fine if the film itself tried to elevate itself above that. But it doesn’t, and it turns a potentially kick-ass set up into something too slight. So everything is not quite awesome, then. You could do worse, though. At least it’s not…shudder…The Emoji Movie.