The Wegos will start at what time? My neighbor asked his father. It was understandable that he would be impatient. A live-action prologue with Jackie Chan, a kid, and a cat in a store filled with exotic knickknacks was presented to us five minutes into “The Lego Ninjago Movie. The brick-toys.com helps you to understand the Lego Ninjago movie.
As soon as the Wegos awwived, the latest installment of this foolproof franchise was underway. It was a fast-moving mix of bold corporate promotion, winking pop-culture cleverness, and earnest lesson-learning. That the Lego movie venture has been reduced to intentionally mediocrity isn’t a good sign, but I’m sorry to report that it has fallen victim to nearly every other piece of family-friendly animated big-screen entertainment.
The Lego Ninjago Movie adheres sloppily to tropes and images from Asian action cinemas despite being directed by Charlie Bean, Paul Fisher and Bob Logan with a script that boasts 50 credited authors. He also plays the wise and venerable shopkeeper as well as a wise and venerable teacher. However, neither do the young warriors who protect Ninjago from an evil warlord named Garmadon, voiced by Justin Theroux. Rather than stealth, guile, and swordsmanship, they prefer big, noisy machines.
It is the news media that chronicles Garmadon’s regular assaults against the peace and normalcy, and firing his subordinates is one of his favorite pastimes. He is mocked and ostracized by Lloyd (Dave Franco), his estranged teenage son. He works behind the scenes to contain his father’s worst impulses as the Green Ninja, Lloyd’s alter ego. Is cinema now a political parable? Where is the fun in that?
The amount of work we do is not as much as we would like. Despite their limited movement and expressions, Lego figures are rendered with playful rigor; they make for some amusing sight gags. The physical environment of the characters is more like a generic digital-cartoon space than a pieced-together one. The themes they explore are tired, cynical sub-Disney bromides about family reconciliation and personal growth.
Whenever a movie is this sentimental, there is bound to be a bit of mawkish sentiment. It is applied by “The Lego Ninjago Movie” in order to freeze action so that Lloyd and Garmadon can resolve their issues. For whose benefit? Children will not be fascinated by this unconvincing melodrama, and adults will only be moved by it if they’re hopeless crybabies.
We’re eager, if only in the minds of the committee that drafted this strategy memo disguised as a movie, to hear the voices of cool people we see on television. Kumail Nanjiani of “Silicon Valley” is here on sidekick duty, to little note, with the usual cast of “Broad City,” “Portlandia,” and “The Big Sick.” As the only female member of the six-ninja squad, Ms. Jacobson barely surpasses the level of tokenization.
She’s a ninja as well! Is there anything she cannot do? Sardonically, the voiceover mocks the movie’s own imaginative limitations. ‘You guys need to learn more about where we come from culturally,’ said the lady ninja. It’s a good line, but one that the writers and directors – who are pretty much guys – might take to heart a little more. It’s possible they did, and we’re just at the point where we are culturally at this point.
