BRICK-A-BRAC
The Lego Ninjago Movie descends into extended product placement
Creatively speaking, we may look back on this point in history as the time the world reached peak brick. The Lego Movie (2014) was a fresh and delightful caper, Oscar-nominated for its earworm song Everything Is Awesome (sorry if I’ve just set you to humming it for the rest of the day) and Golden Globe-nominated for best animated feature.
Then came The Lego Batman Movie — was it only seven months ago? — with Will Arnett’s bat-perfect voice backed by a cavalcade of celebrities including Zach Galifianakis, Michael Cera, Rosario Dawson and Apple’s Siri. Lovely followup to the original.
Alas, The Lego Ninjago Movie is neither as inventively plotted nor as amusingly cast. Headed up by the voices of Jackie Chan and a second-tier Franco (Dave), it imagines a shining Lego metropolis that sits a mere brick’s-throw away from the volcanic lair of the evil Lord Garmadon (Justin Theroux), whose penchant for attacking the city is equalled only by his inability to finish the job.
Every time he strikes, his plans are foiled by a sextet of ninja warriors headed up by Franco’s Lloyd, who also happens to be Garmadon’s estranged son. (Note to the film’s three directors and nine writers — six heroes is too many unless you’re scripting a western. Note to the film’s 17 producers — nine writers is too many, even if you’re making a Marvel movie, which this isn’t.)
Lloyd has a father figure of sorts in Master Wu (Chan), who counsels inner peace and self-confidence, and makes me wish that just once there would be a wise old master whose sage advice I couldn’t see coming from a mile away.
Master Wu also warns Lloyd against using the city’s mysterious ultimate weapon; when Lloyd ignores him, the doomsday device unleashes an even more deadly foe, requiring father and son to work together in defence of the city.
You may call the latest movie a blatant attempt to boost sales of the building toy, and you’d be right; more than a dozen new Lego sets are now for sale, including the $300 Ninjago city and a series of minifigures. But that would be less of a problem if there were more than mere commercial aspirations up on the screen.
Lloyd learns Important Lessons about family and friendship, while Garmadon feels deep regret for his choices, which I thought only happened in the Lego world when you snapped two bricks together and couldn’t get the damn things apart again. Meanwhile, the supporting characters are a mostly one-note bunch, each of them given an elemental power, a colour scheme and a mechanized vehicle that you can buy and build yourself.
The Lego movie machine isn’t slowing down, with a sequel to the original and a stand-alone film called The Billion Brick Race slated for release in 2019; that’s the same year Lego minifigures are projected to overtake the world’s human population, by the way.
But there’s hope for the franchise, if only its makers would realize that more thought has to go into the screenplay than the instruction manuals.