The Lego Ninjago Movie

Apparently, The Lego Batman Movie wasn't enough Lego silliness for one year. We now have The Lego Ninjago Movie to deal with. Lego Ninjago, if anyone wants to know, is Lego's Ninja Superhero brand best known for its Cartoon Network TV show, Lego Ninjago: Master of Spinjitzu. A movie was perhaps inevitable when The Lego Movie became a thing. It's not awesome but it's still cool.

The evil Lord Garmadon (Justin Theroux) wants to take over the city of Ninjago for some reason. The Secret Ninja Force, a team of color-coded ninjas with giant mechs, opposes him every single time. Lloyd (Dave Franco), the Green Ninja, is Garmadon's son. Everybody in town knows about Lloyd's relationship to Garmadon and hates him for it. At least not the highly-visible secret ninjas, their Master Wu (Jackie Chan), and Lloyd's mom (Olivia Munn).

One day, Garmadon finally overpowers the highly-visible secret ninjas and takes over Ninjago. Lloyd uses the forbidden "Ultimate Weapon" to stop him. All that does is summon a non-Lego cat named Meowthra whose destructive playfulness makes things worse. The ninjas are without their mechs and Garmadon's sitting pretty. Oh yeah, and Lloyd also reveals his true identity to Garmadon and rejects him.

So Wu and the ninjas go on a perilous journey to find an "Ultimate, Ultimate Weapon" to deal with Meowthra. Garmadon tags along too to provide some villainous assistance. And also to mend (somehow) his relationship with his son. It's just as weird as it sounds.

I can already see a lot of work went into this movie by the credits alone. There are three directors credited, a whopping ten people worked on the screen story and screenplay and five people were the editors. The Lego Batman Movie had one, five and three people in those positions. So how did all those cooks do in this kitchen?

There are plenty of funny bits in the movie. Garmadon's idea of firing employees is to shoot them out of his volcano fortress. The Ultimate Weapon that summons Meowthra is clearly a laser-pointer. The townsfolk's' ostracizing of Lloyd gets ridiculous with a cheerleader chant that goes Platinum. Master Wu himself is also a master of funny and awesome. Meanwhile, Lloyd's relationship with Garmadon is a strong dramedic parody of the same sort we saw in works like Star Wars. It was funny to see Lloyd's attempt to remind Garmadon it was his birthday end in failure multiple times. It was nice to see them bond when they escaped Garmadon's former minions (long story). Overall, the humor still works.

What about the weak spots? The other highly-visible ninjas, Kai, Cole, Nya, Zane and Jay, are just there. They have some personality quirks, such as Zane being an obvious robot, but are kind of flat compared to Lloyd. The only lesson they learn is to use their elemental powers more and not their mechs. On the other hand, it was awesome when they finally started using their elemental powers. The ultimate lesson about finding "a new point of view" or something felt sort of rushed. It was admirable but I've seen that sort done better.

There's much to admire on a visual scale. The Lego figures and their environments are still fun and colorful. The elemental powers were also nicely realized. The best visual effect was Meowthra herself, played by two real cats named Pearl and Ruby, who were green-screened into the Lego world. Meowthra was apparently played by a CGI cat in a few shots but I couldn't tell which ones. She looked seamless all the way through.

The Lego Ninjago Movie makes for a nice Fall family movie. It's not a surefire Oscar-contender but it's still an entertaining 101 minutes. Let's not imagine how this could be worse. It's a good matinee as you wait for some of the bigger films of the fall. I can name many of them now...