The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
More awesome sauce
All’s not well in the world of ‘The Lego Movie’ in ‘The Second Part,’ but the pieces snap together nicely
“The Lego Movie” — a clever, playfully irreverent, sugar-rush of an animated adventure based on the enduring toy line — largely was a brick-blast of an affair in 2014. ¶ Kids loved it. Many adults did, too, and surely others at the very least tolerated it thanks to its myriad smart jokes. ¶ Two more big-screen Lego releases followed in 2017 — the enjoyable “The Lego Batman Movie” and the decent “The Lego Ninjago Movie” — and while they were plenty fun, they didn’t quite snap together with the same crispness of “The Lego Movie.” ¶ Happily, everything is pretty awesome with “The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part,” which continues the adventures of Emmett, Lucy, Batman and other characters from the first flick.
At the end of that film, we learned the goings on in the city of Bricksburg were being orchestrated, without permission, by the son of a human man (Will Ferrell) who had meticulously constructed it. The man learned a valuable lesson and chose to allow his son to play in his Lego world. However, he also opened it up to his other child, the boy’s younger sister.
Five years later, the girl’s effect has proved great, Bricksburg having become a post-war wasteland now, appropriately, known as Apocalypseburg.
Lucy (voiced by Elizabeth Banks) informs us the last five years have hardened everybody, her especially. Well, everybody but Emmett (Chris Pratt), who still walks around singing the joyous “Everything Is Awesome” and ordering coffee with 25 sugars.
Early on, Emmett finds Lucy, who’s busy monologuing about the ravages of war and the like, and he apologizes for interrupting her “brooding sesh.” Lucy implores Emmett to awaken to the horrors of their new reality — she even tries to teach him how to brood, but he has absolutely no knack for it — and become the darker hero she now believes she and Apocalypseburg need.