Film of the Week: The LEGO Batman Movie

This was a huge amount of fun. I could leave this review here, but it wouldn’t be worth your time if there was just one sentence, but then again, only reading one sentence would mean you will have more time to watch and enjoy the amazingness that is The LEGO Batman Movie.

This will be a completely spoiler free article, which probably means I’m limited to such phrases, including: This is totally awesome; it was a perfect blend of serious and parody; over exaggerating only the necessities to increase the level of comedy; and this was a huge amount of fun.

Batman always takes himself so seriously whilst the film was being self-aware and poking fun at some of the other films Batman has been in – you can probably guess which ones they are. Over the last couple of years, Batman has become a figure that can do anything, because he’s Batman, and this film took that essentially fan-made personality and made an entire film based around it. It didn’t go overboard, nor did it use it so little that it became boring. This has to be the best incarnation of Batman we’ve seen on screen in a long, long time.

What also made this film better was the lack of an origin story. Finally, a Batman film where we don’t see what happened when he was a child. We know already, and I’m taking that as the creators of The LEGO Batman Movie listening to those who are fed up with seeing the same thing over and over again.

I loved how self-aware it was as well. It cleverness of the jokes meant that they weren’t technically breaking the forth wall, whilst making references to itself, and other DC related material, creating plenty of genuinely funny moments.

I don’t need to talk about character development because it’s Batman. Whilst there has to be some development to make this movie a movie, but we already know the character, and you should really already be watching it long before you got this far down the review. Seriously, I’m only writing these words to fill the gap to make this article look longer, I’ve said what needed to be said in the first sentence. This was a huge amount of fun. There, I’ve said it again just to make clear that you should be watching this movie right now.

There’s no need to compare this to any of the other Batman movies. It’s not only an awesome standalone incarnation, but it’s also in a league of its own, where trying to compare this incarnation to Affleck’s or Christian Bales, or Michael Keaton’s incarnation would be very difficult because of the self-awareness and the parody nature of the film, and the same can be said for all the characters in this movie, including the Joker, which we do get to see much more of, by the way.

OK, I think I’ve said all that I can. For those that are still reading, I do have to ask why? For those that aren’t, good, because that would mean you’re making your way to, or already watching the movie, or you don’t like this article… anyway…

Watch this movie.

Thanks for not reading

Antony Hudson

(TonyHadNouns)