Superhero Media: The Lego Batman Movie

Best Batman film since The Dark Knight. Possibly one of the best Batman films ever; no, really. As I've ranted about more than once on this blog, since the advent of Batman Begins and Arkham Asylum, Batman has had his skills, abilities, wealth and competency built up to mythic levels, to the point where there is essentially nothing he cannot accomplish. It is this version of Batman which is presented in The Lego Batman Movie, having probably the most awesome life ever, beating up dozens of bad guys whilst singing and being thoroughly beloved by all of Gotham. Batman lacks the emotional maturity to admit that he's lonely and overcompensating as a crime-fighter to hide his internalised grief. Holy hell, that's some heavy material for a "Family" film. Into Batman's life come two vitally important people, Dick Grayson and Barbara Gordon. Due to a misunderstanding, Bruce Wayne adopts Dick and Babs is the new police commissioner, recruited from Bludhaven, where she cleaned up the mean streets using compassion and statistics. 

What follows is some of the most sharply written pastiche I've seen in years, not only because it tackles a subject dear to my heart, but because it manages to be incredibly funny the entire time. The film The Lego Batman Movie reminds me the most of is Mel Brooks' High Anxiety, in that it readily pokes fun at the weak corners of the Batman mythos like the lack of character growth in 70-odd years and villains like Crazy Quilt and Egghead, yet truly loves and admires the source material. The "I've seen this before" segment alone, which briefly (in Lego form) flashes back through every live-action version of Batman right back to Adam West, is a love letter to all of the mad fun that we've had with the Caped Crusader over the years. The overall "message" of the film, insofar as it has one beyond "we love Batman", is that the character of Batman, and thereby the audience, needs to grow up a little and accept that the "unstoppable badarse" version of the character is not merely only one version of the Masked Manhunter, but may not even be the best version. 

The Lego Batman Movie is, at some level, a passionate argument for a more "fun" version of Batman to come back to cinema; not something so divisive as the Joel Schumacher films, but at least let's get Robin back, ok? Robin first appeared all of eleven issues of Detective Comics after Batman, but he's only been in two of the eight Batman-titled films since 1989, what the fuck? No, I'm not counting The Dark Knight Rises, and neither should you. What about Batgirl, Nightwing, Batwing or Batwoman? There is so much damn potential in Batwoman alone as a film franchise that I can't believe WB and DC aren't looking at it. I think many forget, or willfully ignore, that Batman is a franchise, not just a single hero, and that the other characters help tell the stories. Batman is the inciting tragedy and ethical centre of the team, Robin and Batgirl are the surrogate children, Nightwing the child who left the nest, Alfred the father-figure, Batwoman the tangential "other" everyone is learning to accept and Azreal is the mentally ill cousin who's really good at that one thing you need done on occasion. This film is great, go buy it so that they make more.

Superhero Media: Lego Marvel Super Heroes - Maximum Overload

This is going to be a bit of a short one, for no other reason that that this "film" is around 23 minutes long, so there's not too much to cover. Loki decides that using magic snowballs to "overload" various supervillains (mostly Spider-man's) will be good for a laugh and the Lego versions of Marvel Superheroes have to stop them. It's juts a little short to keep the kids entertained, but it's fun and well executed. The entire thing can be found on YouTube if you're curious. 

The best parts involve Spider-man, who keeps getting left behind by his peers and complains about his "Spider-Angst" until Cap gives him a pep-talk at the end. The incomparable JK Simmonds appears as J Jonah Jameson, he hates Spider-Man and blames him for the Overloads, of course. Also, there's a great Iron Fist reference that gets called back when Danny turns up to help, later on. "Iron Fist isn't a fist, he's a whole guy!"

This was fun. It's not high art, or a must-see MCU tent pole, but it's damn fun and that's all it needs to be. The action will keep kids entertained and there's enough nerdy shout-outs to make it worthwhile for adult fans. Well worth taking a look at when you have a spare half-hour.

Superhero Media: Lego Batman - DC Superheroes Unite

No, this film has nothing to do with The Lego Movie, it is actually a tie-in for the Lego Batman series of video games, specifically Lego Batman 2. Lex Luthor gets the brilliant idea to team up with the Joker and the pair enact a plan to use modified Smilex to brainwash people into electing Luthor as President. Naturally, the Joker betrays Luthor and the Justice League has to take down a giant clown robot before it can destroy the city. As a piece of cinematic drama, Lego Batman - DC Superheroes Unite doesn't deliver, but as an extended trailer for a fun video game franchise, it's pretty good. Yes, it's just a bit of fun for the kids, but it's well done and entertaining enough that I've sat through it twice now; once because it was on before I started doing these "Superhero Media" blog entries. 

I'm struggling a bit with this one because the film was pretty much bang on average, not too many good bits and not too many bad bits. Robin's constant insistence that Batman call the JLA is rebuked in a very Batman fashion for very Batman reasons, Superman is so goody-goody that he borders on annoying and Cyborg is forgettable. One day I'm going to do an entry on why Cyborg's promotion to Leaguer was awkward tokenism, but for now enjoy him failing to be at all interesting. There's also a great callback where Robin thinks Batman's kryptonite hording habit is a tad paranoid, but Wonder Woman thinks it's a great idea. Also, no one seems to like Green Lantern very much, which I'm not sure isn't a reference to the terrible live action film or just a continuation of the joke from The Lego Movie. 
 

If you need something to get the kids into superheroes, or just want something on in the background while you paint, give this a go. It's not great, but there are a few laughs to be had and it's certainly better than most live action DC releases of the past few years. There are a couple of sequels and I may get to them at some point, but the media backlog still looms pretty big, maybe if they show up on Netflix.

Superhero Media: The Lego Movie

I may be a little behind, having only seen this film recently, but the first thing that popped into my head after "holy shit that was brilliant", was "how do I wargame this?" I know of (and have trouble resisting) Brikwars, but I was really struck of just how much the climatic battle of The Lego Movie was reminiscent of something like The Avengers or Justice League: New Frontier, with everyone banding together to fight the villain. Also, if you squint at it a little, the protagonists are a little like a super team. 

So who are the heroes of this interlocking-adventure? The leading plastic man is Emmet, a construction worker, not a lot of playability there until he becomes a "Master Builder" in the third act. In fact, all of the heroes are Master Builders, a cabal of expert Lego-kitbashers who can turn anything into anything else. The only foreseeable obstacle to gaming this hero group is that they all share the building ability, making the entire team Gadgeteers. That thought aside though, the team also includes a Wizard, a magical cat creature, and astronaut, a cyborg pirate and... Batman. 

As family cinema The Lego Movie gets a 9.5 (assuming Who Framed Roger Rabbit as a baseline for 10 in the genre). As inspiration for Superhero gaming, it's worth a look, I'm already scavenging parts for a 28mm Metalbeard.