Lego transforms into animated blockbuster

ANYONE who has ever played make-believe with their Lego set will dig The Lego Movie. In it, little figurines come to life in different universes recreated from 15 million pieces of the toy brick. It's the Danish toy company's first foray into film and one that took five painstaking years to complete. Using CGI to cleverly mimic stop-motion animation, the concept is a refreshing change from the highly-polished 3D digital fare from Pixar and Dreamworks.

With The Lego Movie, director-writers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs, 21 Jump Street) have slyly put together a colourful cartoon that the audience will only realise is a feature-length commercial for the toy company when the final credits start to roll. That's because the laugh-a-minute script - riddled with various pop-culture references - works hard on its own instead of sitting back and letting the nostalgic brand name do the legwork alone. Not only that, Lego's extensive licensing deals also means the film features an exhaustive list of star cameos including characters from the Harry Potter, The Simpsons and Star Wars franchises; as well as Batman and Superman, just to name a few.

With all that competition, it's no wonder the protagonist Emmet (Parks and Recreations' Chris Pratt), a construction worker in Bricksville, feels like a nobody. The opportunity to prove himself comes up when he's mistaken by his love interest, the feisty Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks), to be The Special One aka The Master Builder who will save the Lego Universe from being destroyed by the evil tyrant Lord Business (Will Ferrell). Together with Batman (Will Arnett) and the wizard Vitruvius (Morgan Freeman), the quartet embark on a road trip through different worlds while Good Cop/Bad Cop (Liam Neeson playing a single character with two interchangeable faces) remains hot on their heels.