If you think that Chris Traeger (Rob Lowe) from NBC’s Parks and Recreation is the height of amped-up super-duper positivity, then you haven’t met Emmet (Chris Pratt), from The LEGO® Movie, an ordinary, everyday Lego guy who does jumping jacks pretty much straight out of bed, ecstatically pays $37 for overpriced coffee and loves, well, pretty much everything and everyone.
He’s exactly the sort of person you’d want around when the Lego world as you know it is about to be fused into one big multi-coloured plastic block by a nefarious villain, President Business (Will Ferrell), who can only be stopped by The Special, which everyone in the mash up world populated by everyone from Batman to Gandalf and yes Abraham Lincoln, which Emmet tumbles into, believes he could be.
Of course he isn’t, with pretty much only his bountiful enthusiasm and the belief of Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks) who affirms him every chance she can, believing he is the one to save them from all being glued together for eternity.
And I am pretty sure he will, though not without all manner of amusing pratfalls, missteps and just-by-sheer-luck moments along the way.
The LEGO® Movie, which also stars the voices of Morgan Freeman, Liam Neeson, Will Arnett, Nick Offerman and Alison Brie, looks like a beguiling mix of pop culture in-jokes, hilarious quips, engaging characters and full speed ahead action fun, with naturally a good chance of cliched power of positive belief thrown in, and I for one can’t wait to watch it all come together when it opens next year.
The LEGO® Movie opens 7 March 2014 in USA and 3 April in Australia.
Thanks to five delightfully funny if brief videos from Warner Bros, you can get a little bit of an idea of what each character is going to be like in the movie which is as close a recreation of my childhood joy of playing with LEGO® as I am ever likely to get …