*Originally written February 14th, 2017*
Batman films have had a rocky road these last few years. I wasn't a big fan of The Dark Knight Rises, Batman V Superman was a mess and the recent animated films weren't great. 2014's Lego Movie on the other hand was a pleasant surprise in a way no one expected and Will Arnett's Batman stole the show, so it was inevitable he would get his own film. I wasn't the most keen on this idea, but somehow they not only topped The Lego Movie, they also managed to make the best Batman film since The Dark Knight.
The story starts The Dark Knight in an interesting place. In denial about his loneliness, he raises an orphan he accidentally adopts at a charity auction and has to stop The Joker from releasing all the villains from 'The Phantom Zone'. It's an incredibly simple concept, which lasted a breezy 100 minutes (Beautiful).
This really captured what made The Lego Movie truly great. It has a heart and all the characters are great. We really care about this Bruce Wayne/Batman who has vulnerability and humanity under his snarky ego and obnoxiousness, far more to root for than Ben Affleck's psychotic kill crazy Batman. Will Arnett is also great as the voice, I'm not entirely sure how to judge voice acting, but I'd say Arnett bought a lot to the role.
Michael Cera also made for a wonderful Robin, who was adorable and annoying in an endearing and lovable way. Cera's voice captures that always at 11 optimism personality of the character. The animation of his facial expressions were great, especially the way his eyes enlarged behind his glasses. It made it impossible not to love this character.
I won't list every cast member, because the array of voice actors on display here is insane. I will say that Zach Galifinakis wasn't the most memorable as The Joker, I liked the design of his character, but he did not leave as much of a lasting impact. The cameos from the other villains were much more enjoyable. The spoof of Dark Knight Rises Bane was particularly inspired, complete with mocking Sean Connery like accent.
There is an outrageous amount of villains here, nearly every single Batman nemesis you can name is here, and even a display of Warner Bros. characters make appearances from the 'Phantom Zone'. I won't spoil them, but think in the vain of The Lego Movie, I was not expecting any of the out of DC villains to show up here.
As self-referential and meta as the humour is, they make every prior Batman film canon in Lego Batman's universe. There is an insane amount of references to other Batman films and DC in general. There was always so much on display with all the gorgeous stop-motion animation going on, so it was hard to digest it all in a single viewing. They even go as far as mocking the critically panned Suicide Squad and Batman v Superman in a few quick throwaway gags.
The animation itself really is beautiful. It does a lot of creative and inventive things. Warner Bros really are doing an incredible job with their Lego universe right now, and as great as it was, it was really depressing to see that a Lego Batman film is far better than anything they're trying to do with their actual DC films universe. I wish Zack Snyder had half the creative talent of the guys working on the Lego movies.
Lego Batman is pure joy. Fast, inventive, extremely funny and heartfelt. One of the best on-screen outings for Batman ever.
9/10 Dans
The Lego Batman Movie is out now on 4K UHD, Blu-ray and DVD in the UK
Watch the trailer below:
Twitter: @FigmentReviews and @ArronRoke91
Instagram: @thesurprisingadventuresofdanb and @ArronRoke
YouTube: Figment Reviews
Letterboxd: Dan and Arron
No comments:
Post a Comment