The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part

So I won't see Beale Street before the Oscars. How disappointing. So let's move on to this year's slate of films.

The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part is a silly sequel to the silly The Lego Movie. It's a fun romp through Legoland even if it's not as good as the first film.

The Lego Movie ended with our hero, Emmet Brickowski (Chris Pratt) and his friends, confronted by "evil" Duplo Aliens. The Duplo Aliens wreck our heroes' city, Bricksburg. Repeatedly. Eventually, the citizens keep the city destroyed and rename it "Apocalypsburg." A cool, grungy, post-apocalyptic town too cool and serious for kids' movies.

Except for Emmet. He's still bright and cheery.

The Duplo General Sweet Mayhem (Stephanie Beatriz) shows up. She nabs Emmet's friends, including Lucy/Wildstyle (Elizabeth Banks) and Batman (Will Arnett), and takes them to her leader, Queen Watevra Wa-Nabi (Tiffany Hadish). Emmet turns his house into a spaceship and goes after them. He runs into an asteroid field and gets saved by tough guy Rex Dangervest (also Pratt).

The Queen wants to marry Batman. Batman eventually accepts. But is the Queen planning something evil? Is their more than what Rex is telling Emmet? And what is this "Our-Mom-ageddon?" Emmet's plan to stop the Queen isn't as simple as he thinks.

All of this is presented as representations of live-action siblings Finn and Bianca playing with Lego. And fighting and reconciling.

Director Mike Mitchell takes over for Phil Lord and Chris Miller. The screenplay/story Lord and Miller conjured with Matthew Fogel is a good one. The Lego brand silliness is present and accounted for in Apocalypsburg and Beyond. Rex Dangervest's backstory is absurdity with a straight face. But it knows when to be serious (sort of). It proves it with Everything's Not Awesome, a downer, then triumphant reprise, of the first film's Oscar-nominated Everything is Awesome.

Did I mention this is a musical? It is. Jonathan Lajoie wrote much of the songs, while Devo's Mark Mothersbaugh composed the score. It's serviceable music. Despite the film's Catchy Song insistence that "This song will get stuck inside of your head."

Its biggest flaw is its repetition. In particular, Finn and Bianca's relationship is basically, un-ironically, Finn and his dad's (Will Farrell) relationship in the first film. Nobody brings that to the film's attention. At least the film admits that the Duplo aliens are only "evil" because of poor communication.

The Lego brand visual style is alive and well. Apocalypsburg perfectly replicates Mad Max Fury Road's visual style in Lego form. The other planets in the Lego universe are cool, too. The Duplo temple even looks like a giant wedding cake! The character designs are still great. The best one has to be Queen Watevra; her morphing effect was stellar. And as usual, look for Lego cameos.

The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part makes for a good 107 minutes. It's not as exciting and new as the first film, but that's OK. There's a bit of visual and story creativity that makes it worth it. There's also a few funny gags. It's a good start to this year's slate of animated films. We'll see more of it when How to Train your Dragon: The Hidden World, debuts next week. But until then, this Lego Movie makes for a good family matinee.