The LEGO Batman Movie *** (2017, voices of Will Arnett, Michael Cera, Rosario Dawson, Zach Galifianakis, Ralph Fiennes) – Movie Review

The LEGO Batman Movie (2017) is amusing and inventive enough but it’s a bit of a one-joke movie and would be much, much funnier as a half-hour short. It’s certainly struggling to fill one and three quarter hours, though it could have made a happy 90 minutes, the optimum length for this kind of show. It does three jobs, spoofs Batman, tells a new Batman story, and warms your heart’s cockles by twisting the characters for a cuddly and cosy U certificate. It does those jobs very thoroughly.

Both its actual story and its superhero spoof gags are very familiar, over-familiar now thanks to so much Batmanery over the many years, as we are regularly reminded (own goal!). Batman spoofed itself way back before the mists of time with the legendary Sixties TV series, starring Adam West. However, The LEGO Batman Movie is done with a lot of energy, conviction and zest, throwing in every possible Batman joke and a few others to keep it seeming funny.

After the huge success of The LEGO Movie, it has a lot to live up to, and it’s really nowhere as good, perhaps just because it’s all jokes about Batman, and, after a while, just the same ones over and over. Also The LEGO Movie has give The Batman Movie too much self confidence and it comes over a bit pat and smug, instead of fresh and funny. It’s too self-referential and self-indulgent.

We get it, Batman is lonely, secretly seeking friends and The Joker is lonely because Batman won’t say ‘I hate you’. All this will change over a silly story involving Bruce Wayne falling for the retired Commissioner Gordon’s daughter Barbara, aka Batgirl, who has taken over dad’s old job, and Dick Grayson, aka Robin, an orphan who Batman agrees to adopt because he’s too busy ogling Barbara. Batman, Barbara, Dick and Alfred then take on The Joker and his forces.

You know this movie is a bit of a parasite on the Batman franchise. It’s just another (lame) Batman story when we’re already having too many of them for real. They should have rested The Batman in peace after the Christopher Nolan trilogy. It’s also lazy and a bit desperate to bring on any monsters the movie-makers can afford, Godzilla, The Daleks (identified as ‘the British robots’) and Sauron.

The voices are OK but you’d never recognise any of them, apart perhaps from Ralph Fiennes as butler Alfred, who is classy. Will Arnett’s Batman is a voice anyone could do, while Michael Cera as Dick and Rosario Dawson as Barbara have lots to do but aren’t really funny. It pains me to say it but Zach Galifianakis’s Joker is the funniest of the lot.

Are we really to take all the cheesy ‘heart-warming’ pretend family stuff at the end seriously? Yes, I think we are. How very American of them! Lots of cynical laughs and then cheap schmaltzy blows to the heart. Turns out Batman just wants a hug (and so does The Joker) and a surrogate child and a surrogate father. The night-time avenging thing, big black car, black rubber suit and pointy ears just aren’t enough for the poor boy. Only love and a pretend family will complete him. Oh, good heavens, holy bat-droppings, Batman!

That said, though I lost interest early on, it is very well designed, busy and fast paces, and hard to dislike as inoffensive popcorn movie fun. I was going to say fun that will keep the kids quiet for an hour and three quarters, but the kind round me were very noisy and restless, not usually a good sign. And don’t get me started on product placement.

No more Batman spinoffs, comic book hero spoofs, LEGO movies or films based on toys and games please. It’s decadent and dull. Thank you very much, Hollywood.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Movie Review

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