Everything is no longer awesome in Lego Movieland. That’s the upshot of The Lego Movie 2’s fall from grace, the grace of its two awesome antecedents. Phil Lord & Christopher Miller’s snappy pop culture allusions are still present, as is the terrific voice cast. But this time their confection feels labored, its frothiness contrived. Worse, it jumped the shark by doubling-back on its hip irony. That’s a brick too far.
Let’s hope the letdown is temporary because there’s more Lego movies to come.
Till then, we’ll always have these.
Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Banks, Will Arnett & Tiffany Haddish, we still love ya and your bodacious crew of cast mates. Not your fault the movie fell off the beam.