I think the Lego movie looks like a lot of fun. Its appeal will likely come from the special effects, but even a special effect movie needs a plot line to keep it moving along.

Writer-directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (working from a story also written by Dan and Kevin Hageman) simultaneously celebrate and subvert the sameness of all those little blocks and the humanoid figures that come with them. Their hero, Emmet Brickowski (voiced by actor Chris Pratt), is as generic as can be, and still he worries about fitting in with the yellow plastic crowd. The urban LEGOLAND in which he works as a construction drone is a lockstep society run by the ruthless Lord Business (Will Ferrell), whose government/corporation owns all the voting machines.

The hit TV show in this world is a brain-dead sitcom called “Where’s My Pants?” The song on everyone’s unmoving plastic lips is “Everything Is Awesome,” a chart-ready paean to conformity that scoops out your frontal lobes and takes up permanent residence in your skull.

It all feels a lot like home.

Honestly, it seems like they could just as easily assume that LegoLand is a socialist, totalitarian evil empire disguised as a business.

Just like Legos, this movie is snapped together with slick effects and a lot of pieces of today's culture to make something entertaining. Do these yahoos understand that movies like this don't get made without major corporate funding behind them?

[h/t Media Matters]