After 70 years and the creation of literally hundreds of billions of interlocking toy bricks, as outlined by Saga, LEGO has grown into one of the most recognizable brands on the planet. Starting as a children’s toy company, it has since branched out into a variety of markets, ranging from amusement theme parks and video games to television shows and movies.
It was, in fact, the success of Lego’s foray into the world of video games that it decided to consider branching out further into films and television. After a number of straight-to-DVD animated movie releases, including 2003’s Bionicle: Mask of Light and 2010’s Lego: The Adventures of Clutch Powers and some animated TV shows, including 2011’s Lego Ninjago: Masters of Spinjitzu, Lego decided to fully commit to its first theatrically-released high-budget movie, aptly titled The Lego Movie.
Featuring a cast of A-List actors, including Chris Pratt, Liam Neeson, Elisabeth Banks, Morgan Freeman, Will Ferrell, and Alison Brie, stunning CGI animation with a little live action, a catchy soundtrack, and humor aimed at both adult and children alike, The Lego Movie was a resounding success. Lego has since developed a further three theatrically released movies. With the rights to develop and distribute future Lego movies and Lego promising that their creative team has "reinvented" the Lego world for the next film, there’s a lot to look forward to. In the meantime, we look back at all the theatrically released Lego movies and rank them.
4 The Lego Ninjago Movie
It was by this point that the cracks began to show in Lego’s movie franchise. The Lego Ninjago Movie is based on the martial arts range of Lego’s toy line and its tie-in animated series. While not a particularly groundbreaking or original storyline, there is still plenty of fun to be had as we follow a naïve teenage ninja voiced with ample energy and zest by Dave Franco, as he attempts to accept the truth about his evil father, learn what it really means to be a ninja, and, of course, ultimately save the day. It's also nice to see veteran martial arts actor Jackie Chan pop up in dual roles, appearing in both a brief live-action role and as the voice of the wise-cracking Master Wu. Unfortunately, along with a pretty unoriginal premise, a lot of the jokes fall flat as they’re cranked out thick and fast in a classic case of quantity over quality.
3 The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part
The most recent entry in the Lego instalment, The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part is certainly an improvement on the previous entry, The Lego Ninjago Movie, and it does still retain a few sprinkles of the magic that made the original such a fantastic viewing experience. It’s hard to put one’s finger on exactly what is missing, though, as on the surface The Lego Movie 2 is a wildly imaginative, fun, and beautifully animated family movie that introduces an array of funny characters into the Lego universe, including the shapeshifting alien Queen Watevra Wa'Nabi, played by Tiffany Haddish. The biggest problem was probably the fact that, despite the positive aspects, it was hard for audiences to shake off the sense of ‘been here, done that’ déjà vu. This time around, the citizens of Bricksburg come face to face with a whole new set of dangers when the city comes under attack from DUPLO invaders from outer space, who are intent on wrecking everything in their path. Once again, it’s up to Emmet to save the day with old friends and new.
2 The Lego Batman Movie
Following the success of the original movie, it’s safe to say that expectations were high, but 2014’s The Lego Movie managed to continue the streak and was an absolutely hilarious and fun-filled movie appealing to children and adults of all ages, whilst also being a genuinely good superhero movie. It was truly a stroke of genius to team up with DC and license their most recognizable characters and turn them into Lego. By keeping to the same stunning animation style and adopting the same sense of humor and combining that with a fantastic voice cast consisting of Will Arnett as The Dark Knight alongside Zach Galifianakis, Michael Cera, Rosario Dawson, Ralph Fiennes, and Mariah Carey, the world was treated to one of the funniest superhero movies of all time. The Lego Batman Movie was a huge hit with critics, scoring a highly respectable 90% on review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes and made over $300 million at the box office.
1 The Lego Movie
Lego had already begun to branch out from the brick-based toys it had become known for and started seeing huge success in the video game market. It was this success that inspired Lego to branch out further into the world of cinema. The gamble certainly paid off as The Lego Movie gave the world one of the funniest and all round entertaining animated movies of the decade. Featuring a fantastic voice cast of A-listers including Chris Pratt, Liam Neeson, Will Ferrell, Elizabeth Banks, and Morgan Freeman, and a catchy as hell soundtrack including the original Oscar-nominated song "Everything is Awesome," which also happens to sum the movie in a nutshell.
The Lego Movie follows Emmet Brickowski, an Everyman and construction worker from a sentient world of Legos aptly titled Bricksburg. Due to an apparent case of mistaken identity, he is whisked away from his pleasantly routine life to stop an evil businessman from destroying everything he loves. Packed with fan favorites like Lego Batman and Unikitty, every scene in The Lego Movie is explosive in its color and style. The actors deliver amazing performances, and the ending breaks the storytelling mold to achieve something truly spectacular. The movie was a huge box office hit and was universally praised by critics, scoring a near-perfect 96% on Rotten Tomatoes.