After the massive success of The Lego Movie in 2014, the people behind the movie saw that there was potential to be had with this idea. With something as infamously known as Legos managing to create an incredibly wholesome funny movie, by all definition, the possibilities were endless and could feature bucket loads of creativity with how many various characters and worlds that be created with Legos. But clearly the smartest choices were for them to take one of the best aspects of The Lego Movie, Lego Batman, and give him his own movie. With a world as beloved as Batman in the hands of these childish geniuses, it’s no surprise such a good movie was born from it. In the ‘’home-made’’ city of Gotham, the biggest superhero superstar is the Batman (voiced by Will Arnett). Loving the attention and popularity of his job, it also leaves him without friends or family, even shunning away one of his main bad guys, The Joker (voiced by Zach Galifianakis). However, that limelight is quickly dashed when all the villains seemingly give themselves up to the new Police Commissioner, Barbara Gordon (voiced by Rosario Dawson) and Batman is left without a villain to chase, therefore leaving him with nothing. Finding out from his butler, Alfred (voiced by Ralph Fiennes) that he as Bruce Wayne accidentally adopted a child from the orphanage named Dick Grayson (voiced by Michael Cera) who is quickly thrilled to be connected with Batman and wishes to become his sidekick. While that’s going on, Joker has been sent to the Phantom Zone and unleashes his plan by releasing every known bad guy sent there to wreak havoc on Gotham. Unable to do this alone but too afraid to let himself do it, Batman has to stop the villains from destroying Gotham and revealing his insecurities. Just from that set-up alone, the movie sounds incredibly juvenile but with an understanding of what Batman is, and that is exactly what this movie delivers. This movie is an incredibly funny, fast-paced, action packed, vibrant, well-acted, eye-piercingly addictive movie, but it still somehow produces a completely wholesome sweet movie that also works as a Batman tale.

The movie mirrors a lot of the positive elements of The Lego Movie; the chaotic fast-paced nature, the spontaneous often obvious and silly humor, the abundance of celebrities and the overall atmosphere feeling very much a product coming out of a kid’s mind. It captures the similar childlike tone along with an amazingly charming sweet story packed in with it as well, while also carrying all the popular emotions and themes that come with the Batman brand. Batman has always been a fun character to not only remake and revitalise, but also satirise and change up since the premise is so complex yet quick to follow, it allows for some many different variations; some funny, some overly dark, and even one’s in completely different visual forms, like Legos. It isn’t held back by the humorous and goofy tone; it expands it into its own creation that never feels like its copying any other version. Even when it is bringing in all these famous baddies from other movies and even the lesser known Batman foes, it still makes it about the main character’s emotions and that’s what drives the end goal. While it should be a quick money-grab idea with a famous superhero model, it never feels like its lost focus or being too random, it has that connect-ability that keeps people from getting tired of the humor and visuals. What it lacks in intensity and seriousness, it bundles it up with tons of in-jokes, lovingly mockery of the Batman franchise, and this irresistible level of child-like energy and silliness. A movie that can still be taken seriously after the climax consists of linking the world back together through ab strength is clearly a master above others.

All the familiar characters feel like counterparts of themselves which works in perfect harmony with this team’s way of writing. The perfect way to make Batman, a usually dark, brooding, anti-social loner filed with personal guilt and emotion scarring, feel similar but be complete different, is by making him enigmatic and moody, but also incredibly full of himself, a showboater, a pure anti-socialite, and incredibly lonely and immature. It’s a perfect opposite from the character and makes him his own version of the character rather than just a carbon copy of the millions of other interpretations of Batman. All the other characters are also amazingly charming and exude that sense of innocence and imagination, but also this feeling of needing to be cool and show-off a lot. This doesn’t only come through the brilliantly silly writing, but also the great cast that completely engross themselves in the film’s tone. The amount of celebrities in this movie aren’t even the more common ones that people would expect, even some famous voices like Billy Dee Williams only get a few lines of dialogue if any at all, and the front-runners aren’t even the most famous names, but everyone feels like a spot-on choice for each character. Will Arnett is great as Batman, and unlike Christian Bale, he realises that the tone and pitch of voice is amazingly funny to listen to, Michael Cera, Rosario Dawson and Ralph Fiennes are great as support, and it’s pretty entertaining even getting the glimpses of all these other celebrities with examples like Channing Tatum, Jonah Hill, Mariah Carey, Zoe Kravitz, Eddie Izzard, Seth Green, and so on. Surprisingly the only one who wasn’t as spot on as the others is Zach Galifianakis as the Joker. He actually does a pretty good job acting wise as you feel genuinely sad and emotional for him throughout, it just doesn’t work so much on a menace or humorous level.

The best part about almost every joke done in this movie that’s not either a satire joke or a referential one is the amount of child-like innocence that comes off of every single one. The writers for this movie are the same from the previous movie and would eventually go onto to work on Marvel products and the Rock’s Jumanji movie, films that have similar tones and jokes to this style of movie. In another movie with a less likeable tone and charm, these lines and bits may come across as stupid, dumb, too simplistic, or (no surprise) childish. It’s the cleverly crafted world and atmosphere that these creator makes in their movies that miraculously make some of these lines as funny as they are. But even with that taken out, the visual stuff is equally as effective, helped out by the great looking models, sets and colors. The entire movie apparently took over 500 crews to make the movie in a total of 9153 days, that amount of effort clearly shows in not only the constructs on the buildings and the different locations, but also the dramatic fast movements and several different angles that come with every action scene, which the combination of the CG surely helped out in. Even the moments where the movements are a bit more stilted and choppier, it strangely works with how this world is built like it’s being controlled by a kid.

The Lego Batman Movie, strangely of all things, doesn’t in any way feel like it’s made just to be a toy brand commercial, despite the two selling points being some of the most marketable products out there. Even the notion of making Legos into movies coming from this team doesn’t feel like a cash-grab idea anymore, it’s become like its own form of stop-motion and one that could lead to several other famous movies being told in this style with this form of humor, like the Harry Potter franchise or Lord of the Rings films. Regardless, this is more than a welcome follow up to the already beloved solo Lego Movie. What would probably push people more to see this than the other aside from the charming wholesome story, great cast, amazing visuals, and great understanding of the Batman character, is while The Lego Movie is a super charming, well-acted, delightfully written Lego Movie, this movie is a super charming, well-acted, delightfully written Lego BATMAN movie, that alone would seal the deal. When the only other mainstream films that the Batman name was attached too was The Dark Knight Rises and Batman Vs Superman, it’s no surprise that this was being called the best Batman movie in years. Definitely check out this Bat-tastic movie.