Tag: Will Ferrell

The LEGO Movie

“The Lego Movie” is wonderfully silly, colorful, irreverent, absurd and a brilliant embodiment of our shared cultural experience.

Legos aren’t just toys; for those kids (and adults) who build them, they’re tiny rectangles of color, irreverence and imagination. And it feels so fitting that as “The Lego Movie” presents them, they become a miniature metaphor for life itself. Phil Lord and Christopher Miller’s wonderfully outrageous story captures the joy and possibility contained within every brick.

“The Lego Movie” at times plays like the culmination of the entire Millennial generation’s media moments. The dialogue zips along with the speed once reserved for the Marx Brothers and Old Hollywood Screwball but is now a facet of the kids who have grown up with “30 Rock” and “Arrested Development.” The ironic absurdity to the entire story plays directly to a modern sensibility. And entire set pieces and spastic, GIF ready images feel like every Internet meme rolled into one (a character called Princess Uni-Kitty seems bound to become one).

It’s a brilliantly wild and even surreal experience that reaches for activity and laughs wherever it can find them. Some may find “The Lego Movie” unrelenting if not exhausting, but the exhilarating quickness is exactly why it feels so daring and inventive.

Even the story tests limits by treating every detail with a knowing wink. “The Lego Movie” follows the adventures of Emmet (Chris Pratt), an every day guy who smiles, likes what everyone else likes and is happy to just be a part of it all. When he meets Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks), he’s told he is “The Special” with a prophecy that proclaims him to be “the most awesome, interesting person ever,” destined to save the world and find what makes him so unique.

Lord and Miller (“21 Jump Street“) recognize even the kids have heard that one in some shape or form before (“The Matrix,” for one), so it plays directly on those instruction manual tropes. The villain is named President Business (Will Ferrell), the theme song to the world is proudly called “Everything is AWESOME!!!” and it minces no words over story details that don’t add to the beautiful world they’re creating.

Beyond that, pop culture obscurity designed to go over the kids’ heads and land only with the parents don’t exist here. Lord and Miller have made a dynamic, bonkers comedy first and rely on the fact that kids will appreciate its broad strokes while the older crowd can admire the speed, absurdity and wittiness. For proof, look no further than the Batman song, with the lyrics, “DARKNESS. NO PARENTS. BLACK WINDOW SHADES.”

Although this is a movie that could be for everyone, it’s built with the Lego loving crowd in mind. Familiar Lego instruction manuals direct the film’s hero to brush his teeth and perform jumping jacks while blink and you’ll miss it visual gags and Easter Eggs like a poster for “A Popular Band” litter the scenery awaiting the Internet obsessive to find it all. In one sequence, the film flashes between many of Lego’s available sets and brands for purchase, providing a tasteful, hilarious and even plot driving way of doing the necessary toy-tie in.

The fun of playing with Legos however boils down to the act of seeing the world you can create, and “The Lego Movie” is a visually stunning example. The camera is completely liberated and mobile and the colors and details in every frame are endless, utilizing the best of modern CGI while staying true to the characteristic look and shape of Legos dating back to forever. One shot is a miraculously bleak image filled of destruction and chaos after a climactic battle. It looks worthy enough to belong in “Avatar,” but Lord and Miller smash cut to a pitiful looking cloud constructed of Legos, achieving the two-fold effect of an absurd visual gag while reminding us that beyond it all is a little kid dreaming this all up.

There’s beauty in that realization, and “The Lego Movie” really hits its stride in a fourth wall breaking final act that attains an emotional resonance on par with “Toy Story” and the best of Pixar. But “The Lego Movie” is entirely its own creation, constructed from the universal building blocks that define our cultural experience.

4 stars

Rapid Response: Stranger Than Fiction

Usually I write full reviews for movies that came out in the 2000s, but I had seen “Stranger Than Fiction” a lot, just not in probably seven years. I was reminded of it by this year’s “Ruby Sparks,” which is also a fantasy in which a writer can control the actions of a girl he has written and materialized in real life.

But I would argue “Stranger Than Fiction” is a much better film, one that gets at how authors and literature works without falling into the traps of most “writerly” movies, such as rapid fire dialogue, characters who are overly eloquent or extended passages of people sitting at typewriters.

It tells the story of Harold Crick (Will Ferrell), an office drone with the IRS who fastidiously counts strokes while brushing his teeth, lives a rigorously scheduled life and is a math whiz, who suddenly hears a voice in his head that appears to be narrating his life. This gimmick works beautifully because it comes so immediately. There’s a quick intro, and then Harold is instantly aware. There’s also little question as to what is happening to Harold, and it enables the screenplay with endless possibilities.

What makes it even more fun is that the voice is the salty and cynical work of Emma Thompson as acclaimed tragedy writer Karen Eiffel. She hasn’t published a novel in a decade and is plagued with severe writer’s block. She doesn’t know how to kill Harold Crick. But she knows it must happen, and she says as much in his internal narration: “Little did he know he would soon be met with his imminent death.”

The film was somewhat underrated upon its release because it struck critics as Charlie Kuafman lite (he fresh of “Eternal Sunshine” at this point), a clever fantasy idea of metaphors and morals but without as much of the cinematic whimsy. But the beauty of “Stranger Than Fiction” is its simplicity. Kaufman never wrote a conceit this tidy: man hears voices in his head and realizes he’s part of a story he cannot control. Even “The Truman Show” has more rules and fantastical gimmicks than this does.

I guess the bigger problem is not the premise but the payoff, which is admittedly not golden but is far from terrible. A small part of me wanted Harold to die at the end based on what he reads in Eiffel’s book, but that would never happen in a Hollywood movie. The argument is that his relationship with Maggie Gyllenhaal is never fully developed, but I’m here for the premise, and the excitement of Harold meeting Karen for the first time and hearing that his fate is already sealed can’t be matched.

This is also the only movie that convinces me Will Ferrell can act. He’s so perfect as Harold Crick partly because of his range in being funny and subdued and partly because he’s one of the few comedians who can shout to the heavens at a bus stop full of people without hesitation and not feel embarrassed. Harold becomes a delicious mix of a comedic and tragic figure that befits great literature, and he has a hilarious scene with Dustin Hoffman by simply parroting him saying “King of the Trolls.”

Hoffman too is a treasure of intellect, unpredictable quips and droll, ironic humor before switching to dramatic prowess in an instant. His out of body moment is in asking Harold if he counted all the tiles in the bathroom, a task that previously belonged to himself as the Rain Man. This is probably his best role of the last decade. Even Queen Latifah hasn’t been this good since.

The director is Marc Forster, who has arguably and sadly gotten worse since this film. His resume used to consist of “Monster’s Ball” and “Finding Neverland” and now includes a lame adaptation of “The Kite Runner,” “Quantum of Solace” and “Machine Gun Preacher.”

I believe that a film as simple and clever as “Stranger Than Fiction” can be made again, I just don’t think it’ll include Ferrell, Hoffman or Forster.