#NAMES OF LEGO BATMAN MOVIE MINIFIGURES MOVIE#
Its references to every other Batman movie (and the TV show!) is still barely the beginning of it. Its spot-on snarky confrontations with superhero rivalry and the bromance between heroes and villains isn’t quite yet the beginning of it. Lego Batman’s kiddie-level but still very insightful comic psychoanalysis of Bruce Wayne is barely the beginning of it.
But I can say that Lego Batman is one of the most beautiful and outrageously funny expressions yet of the mashup, fan-fiction fan culture that has developed around geek memes and the merry playfulness of geeks. Best to know as little as possible going into this movie, so I’d never spoil it for you. But if Lego Batman doesn’t quite get into metaphysics of awareness like its progenitor did, it does get into the metaphysics of pop culture. There is awareness among the characters here that they are living in a world of interchangeable bricks: Batman is a Master Builder who can make new Bat vehicles on the fly, which is a clever way for the script* to deal with the urban destruction left behind when metahumans fight the bricks can get reused right away. Lego Batman keeps finding an ante to up in a way that I never could have expected. I was breathless with laughter and nerd joy by the end of it.īut where the heck can a movie possibly go from there? I was afraid I had just seen my worst fears realized: there wasn’t much more to say, and Lego Batman was going to pad out another 90 minutes not saying it. It’s all done in Lego bricks and minifigs, true - oh, the clarity of the plastic in 3D IMAX! - and it hilariously sends up every trope of the dramatic and critical superhero battle. Of course Batman (the voice of Will Arnett: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, Men in Black III) stops them. But this opening sequence goes beyond even that: it brings together just about every bad guy Batman has ever battled - well, the Joker (the voice of Zach Galifianakis: Keeping Up with the Joneses, Birdman) brings them together - in a mad plot to bring an ultimate destruction to Gotham City. Look: Lego Batman opens with 15 minutes of all-in, all-out action smash-up spectacular, the sort of thing typically considered suitable these days to serve as the climax of a superhero flick: the ending of the film, not the beginning.
This is the most gloriously bonkers expression ever of the sublime silliness of crime fighters in capes and tights, and the outrageously over-the-top supervillains they love to hate, and our worship of tales of their exploits. Making fun of all the ridiculous clichés and motifs of superhero stories allows Lego Batman to transcend them even as it celebrates them.
And that’s not in spite of the fact that, yes, it is a parody of Batman, but because of that. It’s a great superhero movie… definitely among the best ones ever. The Lego Batman Movie is a great Batman movie. All of that could have happened, I suppose, but it didn’t.
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