The Lego Movie (Review)

The Lego Movie

Lego Movie
2014
Story by Dan Hageman & Kevin Hageman and Phil Lord & Christopher Miller
Screenplay by Phil Lord & Christopher Miller
Directed by Phil Lord & Christopher Miller

Lego Movie
The Lego Movie constantly refrains the song “Everything is Awesome!” throughout the film, and though the song is presented as a joke because things aren’t awesome, it best describes The Lego Movie. Because everything is awesome. Phil Lord and Christopher Miller took a toy commercial and traditional hero’s journey narrative and turned it into a celebration of tossing out instructions and a collectivist uniting against conformity and conservatism. Also it’s fun and hilarious.

The unlikely group of heroes unite against President Business, who controls the entire world and wants things to stay just the way they are. He gets incensed when things are built that don’t follow the rules or are weird. His reign has seen the Lego city become a virtual police state where everyone follows a huge list of rules and destroys anything out of the ordinary to be replaced with construction that follows the rules. The people are lulled into accepting their reality with glee, thanks to control of television and music, where every show is Where’s My Pants? and every song is the aforementioned “Everything is Awesome!”
Lego Movie
The resistance becomes a celebration of individuality vs marching to the same drum beat. The Lego Movie encourages you to build what you want, and not worry about if your projects conflict with what someone expects you to do. While President Business seeks his stagnant perfection, the real progress and fun comes from the chaos of creation.
Lego Movie

Emmet Brickowoski (Chris Pratt) – Emmet is the most average man who ever averaged, and even when he follows all the rules (and there are a lot of rules), no one seems to remember him much at all. But things change when suddenly the Piece of Resistance is stuck to his back, and it looks like he has a prophesy to fulfill. If he can just be interesting!
Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks) – A Master Builder who searches for the Piece of Resistance and finds it on Emmet. She mistakenly thinks he’s much more powerful than he actually is. But despite her disappointment, she becomes part of the inspiration for Emmet to rise up beyond his lot in life. Is dating Batman.
Vitruvius (Morgan Freeman) – Wise sage who prophesies the downfall of Lord Business and the Piece of Resistance. He’s blinded, and later begins training Emmet, though there is little time for actual training. Has trouble telling Gandalf and Dumbledore apart.
Batman (Will Arnett) – The best movie Batman since Adam West. The caped crusader joins the mission to save the universe because he’s Batman and that’s what Batman does. He’s dark. Also he’s dating Wyldstyle, in between making his music. FYI, people in the audience cheered when Batman showed up.
Lord/President Business (Will Ferrell) – Lord Business is President of the Lego city and controls all aspects of it, in a creepy Big Brother way. He’s also a super villain, who has stolen an artifact that he plans to use to end the world (which involves freezing it in place.) That is, unless he’s stopped by The Piece of Resistance!

Lego Movie
Minor spoilers below the fold!
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Marvel upcoming film slate to take all your money

[adrotate banner=”1″]Marvel released updated info on their next wave of money printing devices they call movies, which will lead into Avengers 2, the film that will make so much money we’ll have to invent new types of money for it to make! Perhaps they’ll take my Schrutebucks!

First is Iron Man 3 coming out May 3, 2013. Directed by Shane Black, the story seems based on the Extremis arc from the Iron Man comics, though long-mentioned villain the Mandarin will be appearing as well. Footage from Comic-Con showed Ben Kingsley as Mandarin attacking Tony Stark’s home. Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Paul Bettany, and Jon Favreau return, along with Guy Pearce, Rebecca Hall, Ashley Hamilton, James Badge Dale, and Avengers star Cobie Smulders. There was buzz a few months ago about “Iron Patriot” armor that just turned out to be repainted War Machine armor.

Next is Thor: The Dark World on November 8, 2013. Alan Taylor is now attached to direct, and most of the cast is returning. There have been no official villain reveals, though the rumor cloud is that it will be new villains with Loki lurking around doing his Loki thing. Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Anthony Hopkins, Stellan Skarsgård, and Idris Elba are reprising their roles from the first film. Joshua Dallas can’t reprise Fandral due to tv commitments, but is being replaced by Zachary Levi, who was originally slated to appear in the first Thor.

Captain America: The Winder Soldier is the Captain America sequel whose title might be giving away the plot line. The original story featured the return of Cap’s sidekick Bucky as a brainwashed killer, so we’ll see if that ends up happening. One casting announcement we do have is Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson/the Falcon, who was Cap’s sidekick for a long time in the 1970s and one of the first black superheroes. Chris Evans is returning (duh!) but besides being directed Joe and Anthony Russo and a release date of April 4, 2014, we don’t have much more information.

By far the craziest announcement was the confirmation of Guardians of the Galaxy, due on August 1, 2014. This is a different Guardians of the Galaxy team than the one I grew up with: Groot, Drax the Destroyer, Rocket Racoon, Gamorra, and Star-Lord. Though I am familiar with Drax and Gamorra from old Adam Warlock titles, the rest are new to me. Basically, Marvel is creating a $200 million film starring a raccoon and a tree fighting aliens, which will then lead into Avengers 2. Sure, I’ll play along!
Promo art for Guardians of the Galaxy:
Guardians of the Galaxy

Finally, there will also be an Ant-Man film, but beyond Edgar Wright showing off test footage, there was no real announcement of anything important about Ant-Man. But one day, there will be an Ant-Man film. And it will be triumph-ANT!

Iron Man 3 title
Thor The Dark World title
Captain America Winter Soldier title
Guardians of the Galaxy title
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The Avengers (Review)

The Avengers


2012
Written by Zak Penn and Joss Whedon
Based on characters created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
Directed by Joss Whedon


ATTENTION: THIS REVIEW HAS SPOILERS for everyone, so don’t read this if you haven’t seen it or care about being spoiled and all that jazz. Because there is really no way to get into the meat of the issue without discussing everything. And just to keep people from getting too upset, I’ll throw everything under the Roll Call so you have to click a button to read it….

Tony Stark / Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) – Genius billionaire playboy philanthropist with a suit of armor and a billion quips. I was concerned his personality would be so large it would loom over the others, but he fits in nicely and has good chemistry with Steve Rogers.
Steve Rogers / Captain America (Chris Evans) – The World War II star-spangled man with the plan, frozen in the ice for 70 years to awaken in modern day. His experience helps turn him into the natural leader of the group
Bruce Banner / The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) – Genius scientist and expert on gamma radiation who is turned into a giant green rage monster due to an experiment gone wrong. Has learned to live with his condition. Then Nick Fury’s team comes calling needing some help…
Thor (Chris Hemsworth) – Norse God of Thunder and resident of Asgard, and brother of Loki. Has learned much about being responsible, but must still prevent his brother from causing problems on Earth.
Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) – Former assassin turned SHIELD agent. Expert at fighting and interrogation, and at having regrets that she wants to atone for.
Clint Barton / Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) – Expert marksman and SHIELD agent, and has the mutant power to have archery bows spontaneously generate in boxes of weapons.
Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) – The dude in charge of SHIELD who keeps popping up during closing credits, and brings together all of the above to deal with Loki and his whole alien invasion scheme. But was bringing together all these people a good idea?
Loki (Tom Hiddleston) – Adoptive brother of Thor and currently preparing to help aliens invade Earth. A crazed egomaniac wh delights in causing discord among the team.


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