title : Top Movies - The LEGO Ninjago Movie Review (Spoiler Free) - Movie Reviews Sites
Link : Top Movies - The LEGO Ninjago Movie Review (Spoiler Free) - Movie Reviews Sites
Top Movies - The LEGO Ninjago Movie Review (Spoiler Free) - Movie Reviews Sites
article2017 Reviews, articleAnimated Films,LEGO’s second movie of the year is currently still out in theatres and one must start to ask himself: how many of these animations does Warner need to produce until we get fed up of them?
Genre: Action/Adventure/Animation/Comedy
Directors: Charlie Bean, Paul Fisher, Bob Logan
Cast: Dave Franco, Michael Peña, Abbi Jacobson, Fred Armisen, Kumail Nanjiani, Zach Woods, Justin Theroux, Olivia Munn, Ali Wong, Robin Roberts, Kaan Guldur & Jackie Chan.
Run Time: 101 min.
US Release: 22 September 2017
UK Release: 13 October 2017
German Release: 21 September 2017
This is it, I managed to write the last of my reviews for the LEGO animation series, for now, but compared to its two spin-offs The LEGO Ninjago Movie didn’t manage to impress me one bit. One reason might be that the Ninjago toy line is just a small niche from LEGO that appeared six years ago. Nobody, except young children, can identify with the Ninjago brand and all I know about it is that the figures were released parallel with a popular TV-series on Cartoon Network. So, since the prime audience is meant to be children, the producers and studio changed the atmosphere to a much lighter one.
This is it, I managed to write the last of my reviews for the LEGO animation series, for now, but compared to its two spin-offs The LEGO Ninjago Movie didn’t manage to impress me one bit. One reason might be that the Ninjago toy line is just a small niche from LEGO that appeared six years ago. Nobody, except young children, can identify with the Ninjago brand and all I know about it is that the figures were released parallel with a popular TV-series on Cartoon Network. So, since the prime audience is meant to be children, the producers and studio changed the atmosphere to a much lighter one.
The city of Ninjago is constantly attacked by the evil warlord Garmadon (Theroux), who wants to conquer the island. He has been beaten every time by six teenage ninjas with mechas. One of them, Lloyd (Franco), turns out to be Garmadon’s son and is bullied in school as well as harassed by the people of Ninjago. When Garmadon creates a new super-weapon that is able to defeat the teens’ mechs, Lloyd uses a secret weapon out of desperation but unveils an even worse monster.
The first notable change I saw, while watching the film, was the fact that the humour was dialled down to a much family friendlier tone. The provocative adult sarcasm and jokes are gone and replaced by slapstick scenarios, while the dialogues take on the much tamer theme of fatherhood and father-son relationships. In a nutshell, this animation retreats from the successful formula that was used in the prior spinoffs, which hurts the quality of the story but also makes for a passable family trip to the cinema.
The biggest issue this picture is suffering from is the fact that it has little to no substance and once the first thirty minutes are over, the story just drags. The plot feels as if it is stitched together from several ninja flicks, most prominently the Power Rangers whose stories also revert around teenage ninja-warriors, using mechas and saving the people from evil mystical forces. Even the colour of the ninjas’ wardrobe is similar to that of the Power Rangers.
Every actor involved with this film gave a fine performance and the voice work, was with all LEGO movies thus far, is good but the characters themselves aren’t really that interesting. Dave Franco plays Lloyd Garmadon, son of the evil warlord Garmadon, who is voiced by Justin Theroux. Lloyd is a clichéd high school outsider, who goes through the same troubles we saw so many times before in other teenage dramas. He is being bullied, his father left him when he was a baby and his mother doesn’t really understand what he is going through in high school, although she does love him.
Garmadon, on the other hand, is a stupid, incapable and very naive villain, who encounters the joy’s of fatherhood around the second act just to throw that character development over-board during the beginning of the third act and go through the exact same evolution again in the last 5 minutes. Then there are Lloyds so-called “friends” and ninja co-workers, voiced by Peña, Jacobson, Armisen, Nanjiani and Woods. These guys turn on their friendship with Lloyd, just because he made one mistake after saving the city countless of other times. They even have a debate about maybe following Garmadon, after the later manages to subdue them early in the film; how on earth are these likeable characters.
Jackie Chan is in this movie twice; once as the storyteller and then voicing Master Wu, the young ninjas’ sensei. He was fun and had good liners, but the character of Wu could really irritate at times as well.
The biggest praise I can give this small-scale picture is its animation. Once again, the art direction and production design team proved their worth, by creating beautiful looking stop-motion movements on computers, giving the film a feeling as if it were shot with real LEGO blocks and figures. It drops the ball, though, once a real live cat is brought into the world of Ninjago, contrasting both worlds and giving it an unreal and cheap look. The colours and the lighting are much brighter and vivid, compared to the LEGO and the LEGO Batman Movie. The soundtrack made use of a lot of pop song and covers and then there was a specific scene that poked fun at the Wilhelm Scream.
Verdict: In a nutshell, the third film by Warner Bros. and LEGO is nowhere as good as the prior two movies, due to the contained demographic and lack of richness this brand of toy line has. The humour is silly; aimed at families and kids while the plot lacks an interesting story, which starts dragging after the first third of the movie, making it feel longer than it was. I was constantly looking at my watch and hoping for it to be over soon. The voice work was good, but the characters are also uninteresting. The best thing about this movie is its effects and cinematography, which are beautiful to look at. So, in the end, The LEGO Ninjago Movie is a mediocre but entertaining flick for families, yet nothing more. I’ll give it a 5.5 out of 10.
Thank you for reading this review. What did you think of The LEGO Ninjago Movie? If you want to read my other reviews of the LEGO motion pictures, click on the links below:
- The LEGO Movie Review
- The LEGO Batman Movie Review
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