amanda_lodden

Short review: Go see it.

Longer review: Let's face it, any time a movie is titled based on what the art medium is rather than what the story is, you're looking at a potential bomb. But I love Legos, and sometimes those potential bombs turn out to be excellent-- I absolutely love a movie named after the board game that inspired the setting. So off I went, with high hopes and low expectations.

I'm pleased to say that the movie budget included a line item for "quality storyline" and "writers". The story shown on the screen is sweet and funny. If you happen to be old enough to remember when Legos came in large amorphous boxes instead of specific (and frequently licensed) kits, then there's a meta-story layered above the story on screen, about how the toy that used to be all about building and creativity is now about instructions and kits, and that story is enjoyable as well. And then in the third act, the movie takes a sharp right turn, adds a third layer that re-frames the entire movie while punching you squarely in the emotions, and continues on towards a perfect yet suddenly poignant resolution.

While I highly recommend this movie for adults, I feel I have to include a dire warning: the theme song is repetitive and highly catchy. It took me two days to stop hearing it go through my head on an endless loop. And that's okay, because it's catchy and I liked it, and the only person affected was myself because I have a filter in between my brain and my mouth (most of the time). If your child's brain-to-mouth filter is not yet developed, taking him or her to see this movie will almost certainly result in several days of non-stop "Everything is awesome! Everything is cool when you're part of a team!" that will drive you crazy. You have been warned.

When you go, stay for the credits. There was no easter-egg scene when we went, but you do get to hear all of Batman's song, which is totally worth it.

I don't generally do movie reviews. I'm much better at books. Movie reviews tend to be more time-sensitive, and I'm not so good at time-sensitive. It's also a lot harder for me to talk about movies without revealing spoilers (I think I did okay here; the ones that I did reveal are minor, and usually in the prequels rather than in The Avengers itself). That said: The Avengers was so amazing, I feel inspired to talk about it... which is not exactly the same as reviewing it.


( Cut for relucantgenius, who hates when I clutter up his friends page )
There's a second aspect here worth discussing, that of Team Movies and how teams start working together, but this is already too long. Perhaps I'll muse about that some other time. Perhaps not. Time will tell.

[Warning: There are spoilers here. Facebook will pull this in without the LJ cut, so if you're reading this on Facebook and you haven't read the book and you don't want spoilers, you should stop reading right now.]

( Spoilers ahoy )

This afternoon's event was a movie. Since between us we wanted to see two different movies, we compromised by seeing them both, with dinner in between.

First up was Sorcerer's Apprentice, aka Nick Cage Playing Nick Cage. It gets a special place in my heart for its stance that magic isn't much different from technology (just a different form of energy manipulation), which is a theory I've wanted to explore in writing for a while. Minus points for turning all magic into nervous system electrical energy, but at least magical fire can still be extinguished by a vacuum. I give the movie overall a solid "Eh"-- I don't want my 90 minutes nor my money back, but I won't go out of my way to see it again.

Dinner was Bar Louie, which is nice but somewhat spendy. Then again, there were five specialty drinks at the table (only one was alcoholic), so the food portion of the bill might not have been the spendy part.

Next was Scott Pilgrim vs the World, aka Michael Cera playing Michael Cera. I'm aware that there's some sort of source material for this, but I've never read it. Hence, I found the movie disjointed, and I had some believability issues with the plotline. The funny bits made up for it, enough to also give it an "Eh" overall. The difference between the two is that Sorcerer's Apprentice earned its rating by being pretty much "Eh" all the time, while Scott Pilgrim earned its rating by yo-yoing between "OMFG that's awesome" and "WTF was that?"