“The Lego Batman Movie” doesn’t stack up

Everything is not awesome

The+Lego+Batman+Movie+doesn%E2%80%99t+stack+up

“The Lego Batman Movie” is visually gorgeous and at points very clever with its use of the lego toy within the plot, but, overall, is overhyped and generally boring.

Will Arnett voices Batman in the film. At first, his impression of the caped crusader is hilarious and entertaining. Then, about 45 minutes into the film, it begins to sound like nails on a chalkboard. Michael Cera voices Robin and is hilarious throughout the entire film. Cera does a fantastic job of capturing a boyish innocence in the hero and made me laugh just about every time he had any screentime too bad he had maybe one-third of the spotlight as Arnett.

The movie’s humor was very repetitive and so fast-paced that each joke came and went, making it hard to focus on one. There were moments that were hilarious, but those instances were few and far between. The theater that I was in had a considerable audience of young viewers and parents that the movie was designed for, given its PG rating, but there was was barely any laughter from anyone.

The plot follows Batman’s isolation from friends and his insecurity about not having a family. This plot could’ve been well executed if the movie didn’t make everything about Batman being completely egotistical and a narcissistic jerk, making me not care about his feelings or his mission. There are points in the plot where the story demonstrates these feelings, but then quickly backpedals with a poorly delivered joke. The self-centered Batman is funny and fun to watch at the very beginning of the film, but quickly becomes stale in the middle of the story. I understand that the film does not take itself seriously and the moral of the narrative is to let those who love you into your life, but this wasn’t really expanded on until the very end.

The movie has been very well received by critics and audience members on Rotten Tomatoes, but I was not entertained. I thought the plot was too fast-paced and not clearly thought through enough and just wasn’t delivered very well. I found myself waiting for the film to reach a climax where something interesting would happen, but was overall mundane until the end of the film. Only at the opening and pinnacle of the movie was I really enjoying myself. By the end, I actually cared for each individual character and thought a lot of the action was really eye-catching and impressive. Nonetheless, this was only at the end and beginning between those two parts the movie fell flat.

However, the motion picture was absolutely stunning. The color scheme and general shot composition is beautifully done and is cleverly used throughout the film. There are plenty of inventive nods to old Batman films and pop-culture which is fun to watch.

The movie is not awful, it just has a lot of problems that clutter the main plot making it harder to watch than its predecessor “The LEGO Movie” (2014). “The Lego Batman Movie” is a mediocre movie that I don’t think viewers should get their hopes up for.