LEGO Movie 2, The: The Second Part (DVD)

The kids loved it

Great movie!

kids loved it and have watched it several times.

The first thing that I will say after watching this movie is that the filmmakers tried to be original rather than repeating the plot of the first movie. This is refreshing, compared to the shameless nostalgia-bating that I have recently observed from some other film franchises. (To wit, Disney's Star War sequels.)Visually, the movie is a disappointment compared to the first one. In the original LEGO Movie, every single object on the screen was animated to look like Legos. In this one, however many of the scenes take place in a dusty desert or against a CGI backdrop of outer space. Even in many (but not all) of the scenes when the characters are indoors, their environs don't appear to be made of Lego bricks, but instead look like video game backgrounds. This makes most of the film much less visually spectacular than the first one. (Which, admittedly, set a high bar.) To be honest, this complaint is my main reason for not giving it more stars in my rating.Some viewers will be pleased to note that the presence of characters from other movies has been toned down compared to the previous LEGO Movie. The DC Justice League and Batman (owned by Warner Bro's, who made this movie) get a lot of screen time, but almost no other licensed characters appear. There are no Disney, Pixar, Marvel, or Star Wars (all of which are now owned by Disney) characters in this movie. However, the filmmakers make up for what they can't visually show with lots of verbal references to other movies.The product description states that this movie was released in 2019. Even if it hadn't said so, an intelligent observer could have probably guessed that this movie made in the years between 2016 and 2020. (So, don't expect any coronavirus references, because it didn't exist yet.)2016 was hailed as "the end of Liberalism" by doomsayers who feared that it marked the rise of a new era of (possibly overtly racist) nationalism. 2016 was the year when Donald Trump was slated to become the next president of the United State of America, promising to "build a wall" along the border to keep immigrants out, and the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union in the Brexit movement, a possibly economically-apocalyptic act of national-control-seizing that would have made Lord Business proud.No doubt, The LEGO Group watched two of their overseas markets fall to the New Nationalism with great chagrin. After seeing two of their largest overseas markets fall to the New Nationalism, the LEGO people must have sat down and started writing a new movie to their pals at Warner Bro's to produce, to convince the children of the Western middle and upper classes, that, no, Liberalism is not dead.***A plot synopsis containing numerous spoilers follows***The second movie begins with the character Lucy (who was formerly known as Wildstyle, you know, the character who is a shameless knock-off of Trinity from "The Matrix") brooding about the events that have happened in the Lego migifigures' world in the five years that have passed between the two movies. Lucy describes how the Lego city was invaded by "aliens." From some scenes showing the viewpoint of the real human kids who are playing with the Legos, we learn that the aliens are Lego characters controlled by teenage boy's younger sister, who has been stealing some useful Lego parts from the collection in the basement to build her own models upstairs.Lucy's lengthy rant about the evil "aliens" who "destroy anything we build" is a far cry from the speech she gave at the end of the first LEGO Movie, inspiring the Lego citizens to build whatever they want rather than follow the instructions that Lord Business had shoved down their throats. Clearly, like the pigs in George Orwell's fable "Animal Farm," Lucy/Wildstyle has betrayed the values of the revolution she once led, and decided that freedom and opportunity to create aren't for everyone, just her small in-group of like-minded master builders.In the first LEGO Movie, the evil Lord Business, despite his Capitalist-themed name and outfit, had operated more on the lines of an 18th-century European imperialist. He had sought to conquer the entire Lego world and impose civilization and instruction-manual-following order on it, but never did he suggest that any kind of "Lego racism" that, say, the Lego City sets were inherently superior to the Lego Pirates sets. In this second movie, Lucy has taken on the ideological persona of a Brexiteer New Nationalist. She doesn't want or expect to rule the entire Lego universe, she only wants to preserve an enclave of culturally coherent order from those bad "aliens" (a word also used as a slightly derogatory term for foreigners) outside.Lucy's brooding is interrupted when an alien space warrior named General Mayhem (ha ha) comes to town. She stomps around like a feminized General Grievous and offers a feminist critique of the first movie before abducting Lucy and several of master builder friends from the original LEGO Movie in her spaceship.Mayhem takes Lucy and her friends to varyingly spelled "Systar System" in outer space, that is, the younger sister's bedroom, where they are brought as prisoners before the alien queen. The queen's name is a contraction of "Whatever I want to be" that is nearly impossible to pronounce or spell. Other characters familiarly call her "Whatevs," and I will adopt this moniker for my review, in the interests of spelling. Queen Whatevs is basically a pile of loose Lego bricks that can rebuilt themselves into almost any Lego model, essentially making her making her a shapeshifter. Queen Whatevs occasionally takes the form of a humanoid with curvaceous thighs, but spends most of her screen time as a blocky pile of bricks, like a pixelated Jabba the Hutt.Queen Whatevs tries to convince her prisoners that she isn't up to anything evil. Lucy is convinced that she is lying, but her companions are bribed into going along with the girly aliens' desires.Of course, Emmet the construction worker was the protagonist in the previous movie, is still the protagonist in this one. In the first movie, Emmet was an icon, the Everyman who had the human spark inside him to make the world a better place for everyone. After watching his girlfriend Lucy be kidnapped by aliens, Emmet builds a spaceship to go rescue them. He quickly runs into trouble in space, and is rescued himself by a handsome, rugged, and militantly manly minifigure named Rex. Rex, who is voiced by Chris Pratt, is plainly a spoof of two of Pratt's previous roles; Owen in "Jurassic World" and "Peter Quill/Star Lord" from Marvel Cinematic Universe. (Both movies have been made into licensed Lego sets.) Rex takes Emmet aboard his space warship (which is crewed entirely by velociraptors, a Jurassic World nod) and offers to help Emmet rescue his friends.Rex and Emmet go to the younger sister's room and unite with Lucy. They and the movie's viewers learn that Queen Whatevs is planning to hold an lavish wedding between herself and Batman, who had also been abducted at the same time as Lucy. Rex suspects that the wedding is the cover to unleash some evil scheme, so they try to stop it. Lucy gets into a duel with General Mayhem, and manages to win. However, Mayhem's opaque space helmet falls off for the first time in the movie, and the sight of her big, pleading eyes motivates Lucy to spare her life. Mayhem explains that there no evil scheme, Queen Whatevs was telling the truth when she asserted her non-malevolence in earworm song. The movie immediately forgets that the brother and sister had been fighting over Lego bricks (natural resources) and decides that there is no innate conflict between the master builders and the aliens, Rex is just a hateful guy who has manipulated Emmet and Lucy into fighting the aliens for no material reason. When Emmet confront Rex about this, Rex reveals (spoiler alert!) that he is an older version of Emmet from the future. The kids who were playing with Legos had accidentally lost the Emmet minifigure under the dryer, where he spend a lengthy amount of time becoming bitter, before getting up and building a time machine and traveling back in time to ruin the fun of Legos for everyone who failed to rescue him when he was stuck under the dryer. The storyline then manages to pull of a happy ending, as per typical of family movies.Clearly, Rex is intended to be a satire of MAGA voters. In the first Lego, Emmet was the heroic work class Everyman, who stood up against the system. Because we all love the working class, don't we? Except when they vote for racist populist politicians. And when they like their guns too much. And when they're too religious. The LEGO Move 2 comments on this deep contradiction of Liberalism (at least Liberalism in the United States) by having both the heroic Everyman and the spiteful working class bigot who lives in the past so much that he has an army of literal dinosaurs do battle, only to realizes that the latter is the dark side version of the former. In the first LEGO Movie, Emmet was able to benefit from the prosperous economy of the Lego city, having a good stable construction job that apparently paid well enough that he could afford to spend USD$38 a day on coffee (and think that this deal was "Awesome"). Rex has turned evil after being abandoned under the drier of the global economy, much like the rural communities in the United States that have been left behind by the Left and wronged by the Right, and thus supported a vulgar and anti-establishment politician like Donald Trump.In one scene, for instance, when Emmet and Rex have just arrived in the Systar System, Rex asks Emmet which planet he thinks his friends are being held on. Emmet scratches his chin and admits "Gee, I don't know." Rex tells him, "Then just pick one and sound confident. That's how you lead." Emmets points to the closest planet, rather arbitrarily, and says, "That one." "Now you're getting it!" Rex compliments him, slapping his younger self on the back. (After investigating, they discover that the choice was wrong.) This is exactly the kind of "leadership" that many of the cabinet officials and Federal agency directors President Trump has appointed (Scott Pruitt, Sonny Purdue, Rex Tillerson, etc.) use on a constant basis. It is a wonder that after building his time machine, Rex didn't save any Lego to use to build a wall.The movie's message is unapologetically feminist. I can easily see this movie being the conversion moment for a new generation of STEMinists. The movie plenty of tough female characters like Lucy and General Mayhem. Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Marie Curie minifigures (what set did those come with?) serve as bridesmaids in Queen Whatev's wedding. Queen Whatever I Want to Be's name can easily be interpreted as a message for girls to reach for the stars in their ambitions (and build a Lego spaceship to get there.)Of course, Queen Whatevs is already royalty, so I guess equal opportunity is only for rich girls. Sad as this might sound, it is supported by the facts. Statistics from the United States show that the overwhelming majority of social progressive activists live are white, have a four-year college degree or better, and live in households that have financial income in excess of USD$100,000 per year. (Full disclosure: I am a heterosexual male in the same demographics as these average American progressive activists.)One common critique of The LEGO Movie 2, especially by American Christian conservatives who have written reviews her on Amazon.com, is that the film is pushing the LGBTQ agenda. Most of these critics point out that Emmet, the male spends most of the movie acting like a weak pushover, while the female lead, Lucy, does most of the fighting and toughness. It's also worth commenting that Emmet seems to have a rather strong admiration for the Rex and his "chiseled" facial features. However, the filmmakers manage to "no-homo" their leads by have Emmet and Lucy in a heterosexual relationship with each other. In one scene, we get to watch Emmet give Lucy a tour of the new house he has built for them to share. In 1950s-TV-show style, the filmmakers artfully avoid showing us the master bedroom, so we don't know how close Emmet and Lucy's relationship is. (Minifigures probably do not reproduce as humans do. They are made in factories by the LEGO Group.)In my opinion, the movie does a good job keeping Emmet and Lucy straight and clean. Queen Whatevs, on the other had, might leave some room for doubt. It doesn't take much imagination to interpret a character with named "Queen Whatever I Want to Be" as LGBTQ dog whistling. The gender ratio of the five master builders whom General Mayhem abducts for the alien queen's speed dating is three males and two females. Mayhem's choices are presented as completely spur-of-the-moment, constrained by practical issues like who we can fit into her spaceship. Does Queen Whatevs not know if she likes men or women? She could be whatever she wants to be, apparently.Overall, I consider The LEGO Movie 2 to be an entertaining and politically aware movie. My primary complaint against the film is its lack of visually spectacular backgrounds as compared with the original LEGO Movie.

Before going to any sequel, I always get really worried that it can't possibly live up to the original. This was especially true in the case of The LEGO Movie 2. I was BLOWN away by #1--a totally original story that was visually stunning and had me laughing the entire way through. I was thus SO surprised and pleased when this movie lived up to the first one in absolutely every aspect! It was every bit as original, as funny, and as touching as the first one! Here are the highlights of the movie, in my opinion:*BRIEF SYNOPSIS (minor spoiler alert): This movie takes place five years after the end of The LEGO Movie, during which time the young boy from the first movie has grown into a teenager. His LEGO building preferences have changed, and his quaint and orderly "Brickburg" has descended into the gritty chaos of "Apocalypseburg" (based on Mad Max). The only one of his vast LEGO collection who's immune to all the grit is Emmet, The LEGO Movie's hero, who's still firmly attached to the idea that "everything is awesome." When an alien invader penetrates Apocalypseburg's defenses and forcibly abducts his friends (including Wildstyle/Lucy, Batman, Unikitty, etc.) to "The Systar System" (the younger sister's room), however, Emmet believes that he needs to toughen up to rise to the challenge of rescuing them. He is aided in this quest by the rugged and mysterious Rex Dangervest. But as the pair of them work to rescue Emmet's friends from the powerful Queen Whatevra Wa'nabi ("Whatever I Wanna Be"), Emmet slowly discovers that not everything is as it seems...*LEGO ARTWORK: Just like the first one, The LEGO Movie 2 is chock-full of absolutely beautiful LEGO designs! It isn't actually filmed via stop-action with real LEGOs, but you'll often have to check yourself since they go a good ways to make it appear like they did! My favorite LEGO artwork in this movie include Apocalypseburg, the Rexelsior, the wedding cake spaceship, and the music decibel bars that Wildstyle uses at one point to make her escape--super clever!*SONGS: They obviously knew they had a good thing going with "Everything is Awesome" from the first movie, and I'm SO glad that they decided to add more music numbers to this movie! The whole soundtrack is fantastic, with "Catchy Song" and "Not Evil" being my two favorites.*HUMOR: I found this movie every bit as funny as the first one, with special highlights being the various references to Chris Pratt's filmography (i.e., as a first baseman in "Moneyball", a raptor trainer in "Jurassic World", etc.) The creators also take full advantage of the many references they have license to make, like when one character refers to Emmet as "a Hufflepuff" and when they provide subtitle translations for the raptor sounds from Jurassic Park. :)*TRUE TO REAL-LIFE LEGO SIBLING STRUGGLES: Finally, just as The LEGO Movie highlighted the "age-old" clash between adults and children sharing the same LEGOs, this one focuses on the struggle between siblings. Having shared LEGOs with my own siblings, many moments in the show forcefully reminded me of my real-life experiences with LEGO culture.I would enthusiastically recommend this movie to all fans of both LEGOs and The LEGO Movie. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!