The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part

"The Lego Movie" was quite a success thanks to animation filmmakers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. It begat two spinoffs ("The Lego Batman Movie" and "The Lego Ninjago Movie") but we now have a direct sequel in the form of "The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part". Various factors unfortunately, besides the inherent loss of originality, are responsible as to why I was somewhat let down. The story wasn't solid for starters but I will applaud the use of cameos and some of the jokes I liked.

The concluding gag of "The Lego Movie" involving the Duplo invaders ended up becoming the first flaw of "The Second Part" but it didn't have to be. As with the ending of "Back to the Future", this ending was meant to be a joke and not a serious allusion to a sequel. Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale were able to work their way out of where their first film left off in a decent fashion. Unfortunately, the filmmakers behind "The Second Part" could not find that same magic. Some of the conflicts and drama felt forced upon the audience. It might be a lack of sincerity in the filmmaking process, resulting from the production problems that the film went through. The show went through a number of directors and was still being written later in the production process than normal. This likewise could have been overcome because "Toy Story 2" also went through production problems but Pixar worked themselves to the bone to get back on track and done in time. There is something else that could have been a factor in the below-par story of "The Second Part". After reading about the production, it seems that political correctness was top of mind. For example, the first film's story takes place in the imagination of a boy and the filmmakers were having trouble in this sequel trying to divide the story between what was taking place in the boy's mind and in his sister's mind. I think filmmakers should focus as simply as possible when creating a story. If they had, they might have overcome some of the aforementioned flaws. Having the story be revealed as the product of a child's imagination was better as a plot twist. The plot twist in this sequel was hinted at towards the beginning so the smart people in the audience already saw it coming. "The Second Part" suffers from yet another flaw that we saw in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise. Because "The Lego Movie" was not a musical, the musical nature of the sequel did not really work. Changing the genre of the franchise didn't work for "Pirates" when they transition from fantasy to sci-fi and we saw similar consequences here. If the filmmakers had stuck to only using a remix of "Everything is Awesome" and introducing "Catchy Song", the amount of songs would have been perfect. "Catchy Song" was a great follow up to its Oscar-nominated predecessor. On another optimistic note, the show had its funny moments. I love the reason why Lego Batman never went with the rest of the Lego Justice League to the Systar System. The New Year's Eve gag was also pretty funny and I like the various references when we see Rex's back story in the plot twist

When you re-examine it, the story of "The Lego Movie" becomes symbolic of Chris Pratt's career. Before "The Lego Movie", Chris Pratt was better known for his work on TV than on the big screen. He did appear in some well-known films pre-2014 (the year that "The Lego Movie" was released) but I don't think we can say that he was a household name. If you look at his filmography from 2014 onward, it is apparent that he is a Hollywood success story. He is Star-Lord and a raptor wrangler among other roles in lucrative movies. My girlfriend didn't even know that Pratt was the voice of Emmet until she saw "The Second Part". The new character of Rex Dangervest (also voiced by Pratt) is obvious an amalgam of all his famous roles. We had many of the original cast return to voice their characters from the original film but Liam Neeson and Morgan Freeman did not return and Will Ferrell only had a small part. This did have some effect in that the spirit of the sequel felt different. Tiffany Haddish's performance was pretty good but Maya Rudolph was better as an aunt than as a mom. It is so awesome that Jason Momoa voices Lego Aquaman. Another very awesome cameo was Bruce Willis. I'm sorry to revert back to the negative but in my opinion, director Mike Mitchell does not have an impressive resume. He has directed quite a few well-known films but I didn't really care for any of them. The directors of the original film, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, returned to write and produce this sequel but both were also involved with "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse" at the same time (especially Lord). I'd guess that their focus was on the latter film. Chris McKay's importance to this franchise is evident because after serving as the animation supervisor on "The Lego Movie", he directed "The Lego Batman Movie". He only serves as an executive producer for "The Second Part" and I could sense a difference between this sequel and its predecessors where McKay had more involvement.

Every sequel usually loses some originality and that was the case this time around as well. It didn't help that two spinoffs made us accustomed to this kind of animation/humor. We are now complacent with the Lego Movie Universe (if you want to call it that). "The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part" was funny at times and had some neat voices in the cast but the story was lacking.

3 Stars out of 5