Turbines to Speed!

We watched The LEGO Batman Movie (2017) because it was praised in some movie podcast I was listening to. When I say "we", I mean mostly me. Ms. Spenser kept me company but mostly did emails. She sort of agrees with my conclusion after watching The LEGO Movie: this isn't really for us. But I still enjoyed it.

Will Arnett is back as LEGO Batman, but doing a deep gravelly voice. He starts by showing us his routine with plenty of voice over. When he fights the Joker (Zach Galifinakis), he learns that the Joker thinks he is Batman's arch-enemy. Batman lets him know he's just another enemy, and doesn't really care about him, one way or the other. That hurts Joker's feelings. 

Bruce Wayne attends a Gala, and meets Dick Grayson, a spunky, yet naive orphan (Michael Cera). Dick asks a distracted Wayne if he will adopt him, and he says, sure kid. Turns out that is binding. The next day, Commissioner Gordon retires, and his replacement Barbara Gordon (Rosario Dawson) takes over. She plans to re-work the police force so that it can function without Batman - which he doesn't like. But when Joker and the whole Rogue's Gallery shows up, neither Batman nor the police are necessary. They have come to surrender. 

Batman knows that it's a trick. Barbara knows it's a trick. But what can they do? Batman decides to steal Superman's Phantom Zone projector ray, and send the Joker where he can't do any harm. And he gets his new ward, Robin, to help.

So that's the setup. The fun comes from the characters and the style. Batman is a self-centered loner, who doesn't need anyone - until he learns the meaning of teamwork. Robin is as wet as possible, like a Sanrio version of Robin. Gordon is smart, reasonable, and employs a best-practices paradigm. The entire Justice League/Superfriends all show up at a party Batman isn't invited to. And the Phantom Zone holds all the bad guys in the LEGO universe, including the Wizard of Oz's flying monkeys, the gremlins from Gremlins, the Eye of Sauron, some velociraptors, Godzilla,...

Most of the jokes are kind of meta, like the use of the "na-na, na-na, na-na, na-na, na-na, na-na, BATMAN" theme from the 60s show, or some of the ridiculous villains, like Condiment Man (a real Batman villain - "It's worth a Google"). But without the jokes, it would make a fairly good Batman animated story. So it works both ways. 

So, Ms. Spenser wasn't impressed, but was glad I liked it. And I did like it. Lord and Miller didn't write or direct this, it was directed by Chris MacKay. They produced, though, and MacKay did a great job in the style of the first one. 

In conclusion, it was Rosario Dawson I watched this for, and her role was so much the foil for the craziness, it felt kind of bland. I think they might have wasted a lot of voice talent on minor roles here.