My Review of THE LEGO NINJAGO MOVIE: Middling and Messy

October 2, 2017

At first there was "The Lego Movie" (2014) (MY REVIEW), which told us that everything Lego is awesome. Then suddenly this year alone, there were two more Lego films! "The Lego Batman Movie" (MY REVIEW) was released in February, and now, barely six months later, this new one "The Lego Ninjago Movie" hits the screens.

The old owner of a Chinese antique shop tells his young visitor a story about the legendary city of Ninjago. The bustling metropolis was always attacked by a dark Lord named Garmadon who wants to take control over the city. However, he is always foiled by  a group of ninja warriors who possessed the powers of Water, Fire, Earth, Ice, Lightning and Green. 

The secret identity of the Green Ninja was Lloyd Garmadon, the 16-year old son of the evil Lord, who had always been shunned in school because of his father. The other ninjas were his friends Nya, Zane, Jay, Cole and Kai, and their group was under a white bearded Master Wu, the younger brother of Lord Garmadon.

When Lloyd uses a forbidden Ultimate Weapon against Garmadon, it unleashes a real-life cat named Meowthra on Ninjago, which causes so much destruction. This forces Lloyd and the ninjas to face more dangers in order to obtain the so-called Ultimate Ultimate Weapon which was their only hope to defeat Meowthra. En route on their quest, Garmadon joined in the fray, leading to father and son getting to know each other more.

The animation in this installment of the Lego franchise maintains the same frenetic pace of bright images at full blast. The color-coded rendition of the Secret Ninja Force were reminiscent of "Power Rangers" (as with the inclusion of "The Power" in the score). Those mech (fighting robot) battle scenes had a "Transformers" style of close-up action cinematography. The scenes at the Temple of Fragile Foundations reminded me of "Kung Fu Panda" imagery. The inclusion of a live cat interacting with the animated city folk and structures of Ninjago must have been quite a challenge for the team to execute.

Several noted film actors are in the voice cast, although I cannot say that they were particularly distinctive. These were Dave Franco as Lloyd Garmadon, Justin Theroux as Lord Garmadon, Michael Peña as Kai (the Red Ninja of Fire), Olivia Munn as Lloyd's mother Koko, "Fresh of the Boat" couple Randall Park and Constance Wu also voice minor characters, Chen the Cheerleader and Mayor of Ninjago, respectively. Jackie Chan played the elderly man Mr. Liu in the bookend live action scenes, as well as voiced Master Wu.

Compared to the first two Lego movies, this one was not as interesting to watch because the formulaic story of an outsider turning into hero three times around is getting too redundant. The jokes were mostly juvenile, only mildly funny for adults, many even falling flat.  The soundtrack sounded rather generic, except for a radical flute arrangement of GNR's "Welcome to the Jungle" by Master Wu.

The central story about an absentee father and his son was strewn with spoofs of every cliche in that familiar movie plot line. While it is still fun to watch, there is oddly no emotional connection that comes through, and for that the viewing experience flounders. 5/10.