The LEGO Ninjago Movie

RATING: C

They gave us the first LEGO Movie in 2014... and three years later with nothing in between, they give us *two* spin-off movies. The first one was The Lego Batman Movie, which was pretty much a glorious and hilarious parody and also not a bad Batman movie on its own either (though a little corny/cliched near the end). Then we have... this. Whatever "Ninjago" is. Okay, I know that it's another brand of LEGO toys and they even had a TV show. But I still know literally nothing about it. But hey, those first two LEGO movies were pretty funny, right? So this one should be as well, right? Right? 

This particular LEGO movie takes place in an actual city called "Ninjago," where an evil warlord named Garmadon attacks the city basically every day and tries to take over--and is met by a "secret" force of ninjas who are high school students. Although at first, the ninjas aren't really ninjas--they fly around in mech suits suits that reminded more of Power Rangers than anything. But it's pretty effective. So what's the catch? Lloyd, the leader of these young "ninjas," is also the son of Lord Garmadon. Yikes. 

This movie actually does start out kind of decent. The "mech suit ninja" stuff is kind of fun, even if a little unoriginal. And most of the film's funniest gags come in the first 35 minutes. Namely, a scene involving a swarm of LEGO sharks that flap around literally saying "nom nom nom" is hilarious. And there's a funny gag involving missile overkill too. 

However, it's still kind of clear from the start that this is going to be the weak link of these movies--and it only goes downhill from there. The first two LEGO movies had their issues, but they were great because they did not take themselves too seriously for the most part, and they had laughs practically by the second. Here, the structure of this movie goes in all the wrong directions. They try to balance things out with a more serious plot and more spaced out humor. 

The problem is, this doesn't work when your story is only so-so at best. All it really is a cliched story of a father and son on opposite sides--and it's really easy to see where that's going. That's another thing--the other two LEGO movies were often unpredictable, and that was also part of their mostly successful formula. This one is ridiculously predictable. Oh, and the cat you saw in the trailer? See, that's actually a very clever plot device they bring in here--but after its initial introduction, we actually don't see much of it until the very end and it kind of becomes an afterthought. That's unfortunate. It's quite silly, but there was more potential there than the direction they go instead--which is essentially a generic boring movie quest. Seriously, very little happens during the middle section of this movie.

Also, the humor takes a step down as well. It's still there and there are a few hilarious moments. But as was mentioned before, it's more spaced out. And some of it feels really forced and weak. The writing for this film in general just does not feel as inspired. There's just not a lot about this film that stands out. It doesn't really suck either though. It just kind of... happens. You laugh a little bit, predict accurately how the general story's gonna go, and then it's over. The very ending is actually a bit heartfelt, but it's not enough to change your opinion of the movie. 

The LEGO Ninjago Movie is without question the weakest movie in this LEGO film universe. It's not terrible or anything, but after the other two fast-paced and hilarious movies, it's a bit of a slog by comparison. I highly doubt that this series has already run out of magic; in fact, they can take this failure as a learning experience. I have no doubt the sequel to the original LEGO Movie will be fun. But they're going to have to do better the next time they make a movie based off a LEGO property that the majority of the viewing audience knows nothing about.