The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part

Taking some cues from Mad Max, the Book of Revelations and, yes, Radiohead, The Second Part is another healthy dose of family-friendly fun where both sides of the age spectrum should laugh heartily. One of my favorite moviegoing things is to hear an adult blast out laughing, and then their kid follow suit. Either the kid is, indeed, in on the joke, or he/she just wants to be like the parent. Either way, it’s just a lot of fun and really cute when a movie produces these kinds of reactions for its entire running time. Cut to five years after the end of the first movie, and our hero Emmet (Chris Pratt) is happily buying coffee in Apocalypseburg, a devastated Lego land of sullen tones and broken dreams. Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks) has taken to dramatic narrating at all times, things are getting knocked down as soon as they are built up, and invading aliens called Duplos are mostly to blame—invading forces that are at once undeniably adorable and unabashedly destructive. It’s a crazed world where Batman (Will Arnett) winds up engaged to Queen Waterva Wa-Nabi (Tiffany Haddish), leader of the Duplo, and Emmet winds up running with a Kurt Russell-type antihero who is suspiciously like him. The reasons for all of the craziness will not be revealed here. Take the kids, and find out for yourself.