You can make anything you want with LEGO blocks, but the
LEGO franchise has now made three versions of the same film. The LEGO Ninjago
Movie is a derivative spin on the same sort of story already told in The LEGO
Movie and The LEGO Batman Movie, and arriving in theaters only half a year
after the latter, feels very familiar indeed.
Sharing a universe with the TV show and toys that already
make up the Ninjago world, the movie plays around with the same elements the
two preceding LEGO films have already used. There is a central male character
who isn’t sure of his identity or his purpose; action sequences that rely on
small-scale destruction; and self-aware jokes about the construction of LEGO
figures, like their lack of fingers. But those elements don’t seem as unique or
as creative on this third attempt, and The LEGO Ninjago Movie suffers for it.
LEGO Ninjago focuses on 16-year-old Lloyd Garmadon
(voiced by Dave Franco), who lives with his mother, office worker Koko (voiced
by Olivia Munn), in an apartment in Ninjago City. It seems like a pretty normal
existence—she’s an overprotective mom, he’s an awkward teenager—except for the
fact that Lloyd’s father is Lord Garmadon (voiced by Justin Theroux), an evil warlord who lives in a
volcano across from Ninjago City and tries to invade it on a near-daily basis.
With countless generals, weapons, and tools at his disposal, Garmadon is a
self-involved jerk, and Lloyd’s bullied and derided by classmates, people at
the bus stop, and even strangers because of his father. (No one seems to say
anything to or about Koko, which is weird.)
But what almost no one knows is that Lloyd is part of a
team of ninjas who defend Ninjago City from Garmadon; as the Green Ninja, he
pilots a dragon-shaped “mech” and often leads the charge against his absentee
dad. Under the wisdom and training of Master Wu (voiced by Jackie Chan), Lloyd
and his fellow ninjas channel their elemental powers (lightning, air, earth,
water, and fire) to taking on Garmadon’s generals. They are the only thing
standing in his way.
Still, none of it seems quite enough for Lloyd: He wants
to confront Garmadon about his failures as a father; he wants Master Wu to
answer why all the other ninjas have elemental powers but Lloyd doesn’t; and he
wants some acknowledgment and recognition from the people of Ninjago City that
he’s not a loser. And when Garmadon threatens a new weapon and method of attack
that could finally bring Ninjago City under his power, Lloyd is really, truly
tested—and learns that being a hero isn’t exactly what he thought.
It’s less interesting to talk about what actually happens
in The LEGO Ninjago Movie than to wonder about what could have happened if the
filmmakers, the studio, or the franchise had made any choices that were
different from what has already been done with LEGO Batman or The LEGO Movie.
What if the movie hadn’t focused on Lloyd, but on his mother, Koko, whose own
fascinating backstory is only briefly glimpsed toward the film’s conclusion?
What if Lord Garmadon hadn’t been a total deadbeat dad, but was a great father
who hid his secret life as a warlord—and whose reveal ethically compromised
Lloyd? What if the movie didn’t rely on YouTube viral videos and the presence
of a fourth-wall-breaking cat for humor? What if, what if, what if.
There are some positive elements sprinkled throughout LEGO
Ninjago, though, and they mostly appear when the movie slows down its breakneck
speed enough to let its world really develop. A community of Garmadon’s
rejected generals, whose expulsion from his volcano lair has made them deranged
and zombie-like, are believably amusing villains, and Chan’s performance
as Master Wu is grounding and nicely matter-of-fact. But the film focuses so
much on Lloyd and Garmadon and their troubled father-son dynamic (a regurgitation
of what we saw with Batman and Robin in LEGO Batman) that no other characters
really resonate, and although the “mech” designs are visually detailed, they’re
primarily used in action scenes so choppily edited that you’ll barely be able
to follow what the ninjas are doing.
After the release of The LEGO Ninjago Movie, this
franchise gets a bit of a break until 2019, when the proper LEGO Movie Sequel
and yet another spinoff film, The Billion Brick Race, both hit theaters. That’s
almost two years away, and maybe we’ll want to visit this universe again. But
hopefully there will actually be something more unique than The LEGO Ninjago
Movie to experience in this world by then.
