I was going to put a review up, but yours is better. All I want to say is, the ending was so sweet that it made me cry. :')
You essentially said everything I wanted to say about this film. Prophecies and The Chosen One are still so common in fiction (at least in big-budget commercial films) that I was overjoyed to see those tropes subverted. Lucy is given some actual development and motivation, rather than just being the generic reward for the main character. Also, while I probably shouldn't bring politics into this, the general ethos (Emmet's lack of specialness, and the ordinary people rising up to save the day) seemed more, well, democratic than a lot of adventure films' insistence on Chosen Ones and heroes.
It was a great film.
It does not matter who I am. What matters is, who will you become? - motto of Omsk BirdLeave a Comment:
This is not A Lego Movie, but THE Lego Movie.
awe·some [aw-suhm] adjective; "inspiring an overwhelming feeling of reverence, admiration, or fear; causing or inducing awe: an awesome sight."
The LEGO Movie is indeed all these things. Much has been said about how much better a movie it is than people have expected. You wouldn't expect a film about LEGO bricks to make your jaw drop at these beautiful worlds, or laugh your head off every minute, or even make you cry for these tiny plastic minifigs. But this isn't just a good film about LEGO. It's a good film on its own merits. The now-horribly-cliche prophecy about The Chosen One has been written and parodied a thousand times over, so even having The Chosen Zero isn't new at all. But a twist to the prophecy provides not only a new spin on this trope, but an insightful commentary on why everyone wants to imagine themselves as the hero, and everyone else the villains or NPCs, and how that isn't fair at all.
And so much life put into these characters! I knew this movie would be deeper than expected when they managed to make Bad/Good Cop, a one-joke gimmick villain, into an actual sympathetic person with a backstory and internal struggles. Wyldstyle too turns out to be more than an Action Girl sidekick, with her overabundance of butt-kicking not merely a way to avert having a "helpless female", but an emotional point of hers, as she struggles to reconcile her overachieving with "the Special" Emmet's near-incompetency. One keeps finding layers of personality in each character, including the villains, allowing us to buy their development, and even redemption.
The final message is a great way to sum up the whole philosophy of LEGO. Even if the film is inevitably a product, the best products are the ones that each buyer can make into something new, something that the product's creators couldn't have ever foreseen. No wonder the animation style plays homage to the stop-motion "brickfilms", as those fan creations brought LEGO films into the limelight. No wonder the climax emphasizes global participation, not merely one hero saving everybody. This whole film is a big thank you to fans, both in the premise and in the amazing story.