Story of forbidden friendship
THE third entry in the Legobased big screen films sees the ninjas of Ninjago City fighting to protect the city from the evil warlord, Garmadon (Justin Theroux).
The Lego movie franchise has been on a good run so far, with both The Lego Movie and The Lego Batman Movie receiving postitive reactions from both the critics and the movie-going audience.
The Lego Ninjago Movie, unfortunately, doesn’t reach the same heights as its predecessors. While the animation is still extremely well done, the humour that was present in the previous films is notably absent.
The huge success of The Lego Movie sparked the subsequent spin-off movies and, while The Lego Ninjago Movie has the same spirit as the other two movies, it lacks the comic timing, character development and overall enjoyment felt by the previous films.
Director and screenwriters of The Lego Movie Phil Lord and Christopher Miller’s influence are felt throughout the movie. However, Ninjago never really captures the same energy and laugh out loud moments.
The movie is still funny, but there were times when characters were in a slowmoving scene and having hilarious dialogue with no comic pauses in-between to allow the audience to laugh and hear the next line.
The Lego Movie had a similar issue, but because of the fast pace and sheer overload of jokes, it merely allowed for multiple viewings of the film.
It’s also a bit strange that this film is heavily marketed towards kids, but most of the film’s jokes would go right over their heads.
The voice acting is well done and the relationship between the ninjas is okay. But we never really get an accurate depiction of the supporting characters and they are left with no true identifiable personalities.
I left Ninjago feeling that, in different hands, it would’ve been better.
Look, The Lego Ninjago Movie is still a fun ride. It has all the ingredients to be a great movie, but they never come together in the same way as in the previous movies.