The Lego ninjago Lloyd Garmadon Movie: my opinion on the movie

The LEGO Ninjago Movie, this is the other LEGO-based movie of this year 2017, after The LEGO Batman Movie, and the third film featuring bricks and minifigs to be released in theaters since The LEGO Movie (2014)

I was able to attend a press screening and I am giving you my first impressions of this new animated film which features young ninjas who are already heroes of their own TV series.

I'm an adult and despite all the indulgence and benevolence I generally have for anything related to the LEGO universe, I left the room a little disappointed. However, I did not expect a film tribute to the entire LEGO generation as it was in its time The LEGO Movie with its winks, its references and the possible double reading of the subject. This film is obviously aimed at a very young audience who will happily laugh at easy jokes and let themselves be carried away by the omnipresent rehearsal comedy.

If you don't want to know anything about the movie before you go see it, stop by here.

Technically, the film is set back. Those who remember The LEGO Movie will be disappointed to see that here the brick does not occupy the entire screen. Natural sets are not made from LEGO bricks. You get used to it quickly, but sometimes you have the impression of watching one of those late afternoon cartoons on an obscure children's channel. Everything in the background is simplified, suggested and a little blurry. Ultimate paradox, LEGO sells sets containing reproductions in LEGO bricks of elements which themselves are simple drawings in the film ...

The director has also given himself some liberties with the minifigs which in the process lose their main characteristics of bits of plastic with relatively limited possibilities. Visually, the minifigs are believable, even over-textured, but the arms and legs of the characters too often take improbable angles and seem to float on the torso, especially during fight scenes. The same goes for the characters' heads, which sometimes tilt a little too much. We also discover that the characters' hands can hold and manipulate objects whose diameter is much greater. The animation of the eyes and the mouth seems to me less well integrated than on the two previous films, enough in any case for me to ask myself the question when leaving the room. These details will be considered trivial by most spectators.

After an introductory sequence that defines its context, the film begins strong, almost hysterically, with a few minutes on which the various trailers (and sets) seen so far are based.

It's rhythmic, the action scenes are readable, and humor helps to relativize the violence suggested. Ninjago City is ravaged, the civilians are fleeing, the bad guys are ruthless, the ninjas are coming to the rescue and the kids will love it because they came for it. The different mechs make a quick passage in the film, we will not see them again later. This entry would almost sound like a well-timed ad to make sure that even if you lose track later, you will still go and buy a derivative.

And suddenly, the film falls irremediably into simplistic psychological melodrama about father-son relationships, the burden of inheritance, difference and its social consequences and gets lost in useless chatter during endless scenes punctuated with jokes. without interest to dilute the whole. The subject of the film becomes confused, even if we already know the end.

Everything else becomes incidental and secondary, Godzichat included, and the film only revolves around Lloyd, his father and his mother with boring flashbacks and moralizing happy ending. Lots of downtime and static scenes. The little ones will probably lose track and start to get impatient.

It's more of a film about Lloyd and his father than anything else. The other ninjas act as extras, you don't hear them much and they just nod, take offense or laugh. Good for the judoka Teddy Riner who lends his voice to Cole and painfully recites his text. Don't expect to see the plethora of "civilians" sold in the various sets playing a role in the film, either. It almost looks like LEGO made up their names.

Unlike The LEGO Movie, the director here puts the viewer at ease from the beginning of the film: The putting into perspective of the toy which is ultimately only at the service of the one who plays is announced. The LEGO Movie ended by reminding us that the LEGO products on sale at the corner store have the power to tell all the stories coming out of your imagination, here we are informed from the start that they are only a vector of transmission of the moral of the film. This is not a movie about the adventures of young ninjas well known to fans. It's a somewhat boring and conventional moralizing fable told through LEGO toys.

What could have been family entertainment based on a universe much appreciated by the youngest turns into a laborious tale that wants to tackle many social topics and does so in a clumsy and reductive way, as if this giant advertisement needs to be made up as an ode to tolerance and the acceptance of difference to give oneself a clear conscience.

Children will undoubtedly find what they are looking for, especially during the first part of the film. Garmadon is a cartoonish super-villain who still has a heart, ninjas are stronger together, in short, you know the song. The on-screen stealth of the content of some sets based on the film (all the boxes featuring the different robots) is a little disappointing, but as we will only remember these really successful action scenes punctuated by winks. look at Pacific Rim or Transformers, it's not that big of a deal.

Release in theaters on October 11th.