{"id":6369,"date":"2017-02-09T23:45:52","date_gmt":"2017-02-10T04:45:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/?p=6369"},"modified":"2018-06-28T13:39:49","modified_gmt":"2018-06-28T17:39:49","slug":"review-in-lego-batman-movie-everything-snaps-into-place","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/review-in-lego-batman-movie-everything-snaps-into-place\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: In ‘LEGO Batman Movie,’ Everything Snaps into Place"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a way, it\u2019s a little ironic: While DC\/Warner Bros. struggles to deliver a successful Batman film to a public that\u2019s still (for the time being, anyway) hungry for superhero flicks, in slips The LEGO Batman Movie<\/i> with an outwardly silly riff on the Bruce Wayne mythos that explores the brooding hero\u2019s psyche with more finesse than any movie that\u2019s come before it.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you saw The LEGO Movie<\/i>, and you probably did, you\u2019re familiar with the toy-brick take on Batman — a cocky loner voiced by Will Arnett who takes great joy in his gadgets, hates Superman, and occasionally whips out a guitar solo. Here, we get more Bat-action as he uses his crazy array of vehicles to flip, fly, climb and propel himself in the name of justice. But we also get to see the loneliness behind the cowl, when he forlornly microwaves his solo Lobster Thermidore because Alfred\u2019s out for the evening.<\/span><\/p>\n

Batman\u2019s insistence that he needs no one else extends to the Joker (Zach Galifianakis, striking a perfect balance of unhinged comic menace), who just wants the Caped Crusader to admit that he\u2019s his biggest enemy. But even that\u2019s more commitment than Batman can handle (\u201cBatman don\u2019t do \u2018ships,\u201d he tells the heartbroken Joker) so when, as Bruce Wayne, he accidentally adopts exuberant orphan Dick Grayson (Michael Cera), he only lets the lad tag along on a mission because he\u2019s \u201c110 percent expendable.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Tossing in clever throwbacks to every epoch of Batman\u2019s storied career, director Chris McKay (\u201cRobot Chicken\u201d) and a crew of writers pay loving homage without taking themselves too seriously (a throwaway gag about \u201cshark repellent\u201d is funnier if you remember Adam West\u2019s battle with a rubber shark while suspended from a helicopter, but the reference still pays off later in the plot) and laughingly acknowledge that both The Bat and Bruce Wayne must be around 90 years old by now. And the plot, which forces Batman to choose between working on his own to save Gotham City or team up with new son Robin, father-figure Alfred (Ralph Fiennes), and Commissioner Barbara Gordon (Rosario Dawson), drives home a message that\u2019s not just family-friendly, but also offers a surprisingly fresh take on a hero who\u2019s been already been psychoanalyzed countless times.<\/span><\/p>\n

As with The LEGO Movie<\/i>, there are moments when the action on the screen is so busy with bits of flying color and propulsive kinetics that it can feel overwhelming, but there are also slower, darker segments as befits a Batman film (yes, even a LEGO Batman film.) The PG rating is for \u201c<\/span>rude humor and some action,\u201d not for truly adult content — at one point, Robin rips off his pants because they\u2019re too tight, and the password for the Batcave is \u201cIron Man sucks,\u201d so if you\u2019re a parent concerned about the rating, that\u2019s all you\u2019re in for.<\/span><\/p>\n

With fans taking their superhero movies so deathly seriously, it\u2019s marvelous to see a little fun brought back to Gotham. Even LEGO Batman acknowledges that his oeuvre\u2019s gone a bit off the rails with a side-swipe at Suicide Squad, asking, \u201cWhat am I gonna do, get a bunch of criminals together to fight criminals? That\u2019s a stupid idea!\u201d Indeed.<\/span><\/p>\n

Grade: B+<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n
\n

Dawn Taylor<\/a> lives in Portland, where she’s constantly accidentally adopting orphans.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a way, it\u2019s a little ironic: While DC\/Warner Bros. struggles to deliver a successful Batman film to a public […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":465,"featured_media":6372,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1381,340],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movies","category-movie-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/465"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6369\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}