The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part (a movie review post)

I'm just going to get it out of the way that Phil Lord and Christopher Miller are not some of my favorite movie people, as I talked about in this post. That doesn't mean they're not good at what they're good at, though, and, evidently, what they're good at is writing comedies. [Come on, Disney, what made you think these guys were capable of helming a Star Wars movie? Maybe a Lego Star Wars movie (why aren't you doing that?), but not a franchise film.] All of which is to say that The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part is almost as good as the first one.
Almost.

There may be some spoilers in here. Okay, I lied. There will be some spoilers in here.
You've been warned.

The first issue with the movie is that it jumps ahead five years. On the surface, this isn't an issue; however, when you look at the movie in the context of the outside world it's set in -- and you have to, because this one breaks that barrier much more heavily than the first -- you have to reconcile the idea that the brother and sister have been having this conflict over Lego and sharing and playing together for the entire five years and the mother is only just now at her breaking point? Do Lord and Miller even have kids? [No, I don't care enough to look that up.] This idea is dumb.

So is the idea that Finn (the boy) has being playing at Apocalypseberg for five years. And maybe he hasn't been, but it's certainly implied.

And, again, do Lord and Miller even have kids? Because when Finn goes to Bianca's room and smashes her Lego construction [Her personal Lego in her room! Because let's get this straight, the Lego that Finn plays with are his dad's! It was his dad's stuff that he was allowed to play with but, evidently, despite the message that Bianca was going to get to share in that endeavor, she's been isolated to only playing with her personal stuff in her own room for the past five years AND NO ONE HAS DONE ANYTHING ABOUT THE FACT THAT FINN IS A DICK!], she is punished right along with Finn. As a parent, I'm appalled by this, the fact that Finn got off Scott-free for smashing her stuff.

The other story issue with the film is the increasing frequency that the Minifigures are able to see into the human world. I believe that happens once in the first movie? During the climax, Emmet sees into the real world briefly and sees the father/son conflict. Something like that. I haven't seen it again since it seeing it in the theater and don't quite remember. However, in this one, any time the story is at a sticking point, there's a glimpse into the real world to push it along. And not just from Emmet, which I find problematic since that was supposed to be his special ability. Now it's just a plot device.

All of that said, when they stick to what's going on in the Lego world, everything works fine. The humor is good, and it's an enjoyable film. Probably, these things that bother me aren't going to bother anyone else. Or even be noticed by most other people.

The voice acting was fine. I suppose Chris Pratt deserves a special shout out for doing two characters and having the non-Emmet character not sound totally like Chris Pratt. Of course, I don't actually know if that was due to voice acting or if it was due to sound engineering. But, if it was him, he did a good job.

And I didn't even realize that Unikitty had an actual voice actor but, then, I wasn't really aware of Alison Brie five years ago. Okay, that's not true, because we watched Mad Men, but she didn't impress me in that. Since then, though, I've been very impressed, and her Unikitty voice skillz are pretty mad.

So, yeah, if you want a fun movie that won't require a lot of thought and will deliver on the laughs, Lego Movie 2 is a good choice.
Damn you, Lord and Miller!