Review: Lego Ninjago Is The Lesser Of Three Movies
- Sep 21, 2017
- 2 min read
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be the estranged son of an evil overlord? Do you enjoy kung-fu movies? Do you think Jackie Chan would make a good Lego figure? The answers to your questions have arrived.
Lloyd (Dave Franco) is your everyday son of the evil overlord Garmadon (Justin Theroux) and secret mech piloting ninja. For an undefined amount of time, he and a team of other child ninjas have protected the city of Ninjago, all while under the watchful eye of Master Wu (Jackie Chan). But when Garmadon succeeds in conquering the city, literally by climbing to the top of a tower and planting his flag, and the terrible Meowthra is unleashed, Lloyd will have to deal with his family issues and secure the ultimate ultimate weapon before Ninjago is destroyed forever.
To say Lego Ninjago is bad would be a lie, to say it pales in comparison to the prior films in what is now a trilogy, not so much. It's pretty formulaic in its concept, that being a son reuniting with his father, and while at times it injects some of that weird Lego humor we've come to expect, it fails to reach the lofty heights set by this years Lego Batman.
Much like the other films, the animation is excellent and the attention to detail, ranging from finger prints and scuff marks to serial numbers and mold lines, is incredible. But the characters are lackluster and, aside from Chan's Master Wu, aren't much fun to watch. While it certainly throws on the parody, Pacific Rim, Power Rangers, Bruce Lee and more, it either feels forced or insufficient.
At the end of the day, Lego Ninjago isn't bad, just average. There's a few laughs here and there, almost entirely delivered by either Chan or Theroux, Meowthra is a good idea, and the core of the story is solid but it feels more like a haphazardly constructed tower rather than the carefully built films before it.
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