No one ties down this Batman forever.

The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part

(2019)

(SPOILERS) The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part isn’t very good. Which is to say, it’s just about passable – nothing more, so don’t take the equal and opposite tack and interpret that as effusiveness – until the last twenty minutes, when it opts to become actively objectionable in its efforts to patronise and consequently provoke children (and hopefully their parents) everywhere into states of abject wrath. The fact that Phil Lord and Chris Miller penned the screenplay should, by rights, cause any rational person to question every positive impression they hitherto had of the duo.

The first Lego Movie was also partially infected by nauseatingly unnuanced messages (about rekindling one’s inner child and such like), but the worst damage was averted by fairly limited – even limited is much too much, though – live-action sequences and the sensible game plan of never straying too far from a gag in the main text, as replete with unbridled positivity as it was (even then, The Lego Batman Movie was far superior for mostly avoiding such eggy bread). Here, there’s no escape. Even in the animation.

Aside from the self-mockery of Batman (Will Arnett, as hilarious in delivery as ever), there’s precious little in The Lego Movie 2 to distract from its pungent antiseptic streak. Attempts at movie parody seem rather tired when the best they can come up with is an extended Fury Road riff, four years past its sell-by-date (the teen boy of the household is into his dystopian Lego visions, hence Apocalypseburg), contrasted with the sweetness and light, first characterised with suspicion, of his younger sister’s Duplotopia as overseen by Tiffany Haddish’ underwhelming Queen Watevra Wa’Nabi (set on marrying Batman, a scenario that elicits a few decent lines, but Batman can’t ultimately save it); the twist in the tale is that there is no enemy, and the only enemy is within us (Emmet’s alter-ego, Kurt Russell-alike Rex Dangervest, turns out to be future Emmet arriving via a mildly amusing time-travel movies referencing conceit. And being trapped under the fridge).

Naturally, there are sufficient digressions that this isn’t a complete washout. Bruce Willis – is he about to undergo a Bruce-naissance? No, probably not, but at least he’s laughing at himself. A bit – plays a bald, John McClane Bruce in two scenes, while Jason Momoa voices Aquaman. There are songs too, of course, with Everything is Awesome inevitably reprised, and new Catchy Song being exactly what it says in the title, without ever being as earwormy as Awesome.

None of this can offset that there’s something deeply off-putting and aesthetically egregious about the digression into live action as teen Finn destroys his sister Bianca’s Lego works. It’s a scenario so entirely lacking in imagination and artistry, delivered with a sledgehammer absence of anything approaching competent writing, devoid of subtlety, humour or wit, it renders the entire Lego cinematic project of questionable merit.

There was debate anyway, following the diminishing returns of The Lego Ninjago Movie, that the big screen franchise had legs, and the decision to double down on the sentiment rather than amp up the yuks has likely crippled it further. Quite possibly, we won’t see The Lego Movie 3. Most likely, it will limp into existence in the same way Look Who’s Talking Now arrived to no one’s bated breath. No infant ought to be screaming to go and see another Lego outing after being subjected to such abhorrent demands on their deeply-buried-until-adulthood positive feelings towards their siblings.

Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.

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She was addicted to Tums for a while.

Marriage Story (2019)
(SPOILERS) I don’t tend to fall heavily for Noah Baumbach fare. He’s undoubtedly a distinctive voice – even if his collaborations with Wes Anderson are the least of that director’s efforts – but his devotion to an exclusive, rarefied New York bubble becomes ever more off-putting with each new project. And ever more identifiable as being a lesser chronicler of the city’s privileged quirks than his now disinherited forbear Woody Allen, who at his peak mastered a balancing act between the insightful, hilarious and self-effacing. Marriage Story finds Baumbach going yet again where Woody went before, this time brushing up against the director’s Ingmar Bergman fixation.

You're not only wrong. You're wrong at the top of your voice.

Bad Day at Black Rock (1955)
I’ve seen comments suggesting that John Sturges’ thriller hasn’t aged well, which I find rather mystifying. Sure, some of the characterisations border on the cardboard, but the director imbues the story with a taut, economical backbone.

My name is Dr. King Schultz, this is my valet, Django, and these are our horses, Fritz, and Tony.

Django Unchained (2012)
(MINOR SPOILERS) Since the painful misstep of Grindhouse/Death Proof, Quentin Tarantino has regained the higher ground like never before. Pulp Fiction, his previous commercial and critical peak, has been at very least equalled by the back-to-back hits of Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained. Having been underwhelmed by his post Pulp Fiction efforts (albeit, I admired his technical advances as a director in Kill Bill), I was pleasantly surprised by Inglourious Basterds. It was no work of genius (so not Pulp Fiction) by any means, but there was a gleeful irreverence in its treatment of history and even to the nominal heroic status of its titular protagonists. Tonally, it was a good fit for the director’s “cool” aesthetic. As a purveyor of postmodern pastiche, where the surface level is the subtext, in some ways he was operating at his zenith. Django Unchained is a retreat from that position, the director caught in the tug between his all-important aesthetic pr…

It looks like we’ve got another schizoid embolism!

Total Recall (1990)
(SPOILERS) Paul Verhoeven offered his post-mortem on the failures of the remakes of Total Recall (2012) and Robocop (2013) when he suggested “They take these absurd stories and make them too serious”. There may be something in this, but I suspect the kernel of their issues is simply filmmakers without either the smarts or vision, or both, to make something distinctive from the material. No one would have suggested the problem with David Cronenberg’s prospective Total Recall was over-seriousness, yet his version would have been far from a quip-heavy Raiders of the Lost Ark Go to Mars (as he attributes screenwriter Ron Shusset’s take on the material). Indeed, I’d go as far as saying not only the star, but also the director of Total Recall (1990) were miscast, making it something of a miracle it works to the extent it does.

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2 Guns (2013)
(SPOILERS) Denzel Washington is such a reliable performer, that it can get a bit boring. You end up knowing every gesture or inflection in advance, whether he’s playing a good guy or a bad guy. And his films are generally at least half decent, so you end up seeing them. Even in Flight (or perhaps especially in Flight; just watch him chugging down that vodka) where he’s giving it his Oscar-nominatable best, he seems too familiar. I think it may be because he’s an actor who is more effective the less he does. In 2 Guns he’s not doing less, but sometimes it seems like it. That’s because the last person I’d ever expect blows him off the screen; Mark Wahlberg.

He tasks me. He tasks me, and I shall have him.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
(1982)
(SPOILERS) I don’t love Star Trek, but I do love Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. That probably isn’t just me, but a common refrain of many a non-devotee of the series. Although, it used to apply to The Voyage Home (the funny one, with the whales, the Star Trek even the target audience for Three Men and a Baby could enjoy). Unfortunately, its high regard has also become the desperate, self-destructive, song-and-verse, be-all-and-end-all of the overlords of the franchise itself, in whichever iteration, it seems. This is understandable to an extent, as Khan is that rare movie sequel made to transcendent effect on almost every level, and one that stands the test of time every bit as well (better, even) as when it was first unveiled.

I am you, and you are me, and we are here. I am the dreamer. You are the dream.

Communion (1989)
(SPOILERS) Whitley Strieber’s Communion: A True Story was published in 1987, at which point the author (who would also pen Communion’s screenplay) had seen two of his novels adapted for the cinema (Wolfen and The Hunger), so he could hardly claim ignorance of the way Hollywood – or filmmaking generally – worked. So why then, did he entrust the translation of a highly personal work, an admission of/ confrontation with hidden demons/ experiences, to the auteur who unleashed Howling II and The Marsupials: Howling III upon an undeserving world? The answer seems to be that Strieber already knew director Philippe Mora, and the latter was genuinely interested in the authors’ uncanny encounters. Which is well and good and honourable, but the film entirely fails to deliver the stuff of cinematic legend. Except maybe in a negative sense.

Strieber professes dismay at the results, citing improvised scenes and additional themes, and Walken’s rendition of Whitley Strieber, protagonist…

My dear, sweet brother Numsie!

The Golden Child (1986)
Post-Beverly Hills Cop, Eddie Murphy could have filmed himself washing the dishes and it would have been a huge hit. Which might not have been a bad idea, since he chose to make this misconceived stinker.

So you made contact with the French operative?

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He did it. He shut down the Earth.

Escape from L.A. (1996)
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Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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