It has been 5 years since The Lego Movie graced our screens, and while we have gotten many different spin offs, we had yet to get a sequel to the original movie until now. The Lego Movie blew people away with the popularity and praise that it received so naturally a sequel was always going to be a matter of when and not if. While many complained how long it took between the first and second, Warner Bros. took their time to make sure that they delivered on the sequel. So let’s go over some of the highs and lows that we felt were in The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part. As always this article has SPOILERS so turn away now if you haven’t seen it!

High: New & Returning Characters

One of the things that makes for a good sequel is if all the original characters and actors return for the sequel, and in this case we got that. The movie starts out in a Mad Max style world called ApocalypseBerg, but we soon see all of our favorite characters from the first movie like Emmett, WyldStyle, Batman, Unikitty, MetalBeard and Benny. Emmett is still his happy go lucky self while the others have a darker undertone to fit with the dystopian world. We are soon introduced to the some of the new “invading” characters from the Systar System including the hilariously evil exploding stars, General Mayhem, and Queen Watevra Wa’Nabi. We also are soon introduced to Rex Dangervest who later find out is future Emmett. The voice cast for the movie was spectacular and Tiffany Haddish’s Queen Watevra Wa’Nabi was an amazing addition. For me though I absolutely love the evil baby stars. Every time they came on the screen I was laughing.

Low: Forced Singing

We all remember the first movie and hopefully by now you have gotten the “Everything is Awesome” song out of your head. Singing has always been apart of The Lego Movie franchise and by now you have come to accept it. Going in the sequel we all expected a song to get stuck inside our heads by the end of it. What we didn’t expect is for the song to be titled ” This Song’s Gonna Get Stuck Inside Your Head”, which is literally pretty much the whole song. While that song wasn’t actually to bad compared to “Everything is Awesome”, it was the other songs in the second movie that seemed forced and frankly, didn’t really even need to be in it. Most of the singing came from Queen Watevra Wa’Nabi played by Tiffany Haddish. The songs sounded like if they were being read off of a script with music playing in the background. The songs weren’t really needed and kind of just left you going, “ok is the song almost over?”

High: The Twists

For the most part you go into this movie almost knowing what you are going to get. Probably some singing, a lot of comedy, and a pretty decent story to follow the movie. What was not expected was the amount of twists that came from the sequel. In the movie we are lead to believe that these invaders from the Systar System are evil and are trying to destroy all of the Lego’s we know and love. General Mayhem seems to be the evil henchman of Queen Watevra Wa’Nabi and will do whatever is needed to find her Queen a husband. While this is going on Emmett is with his new friend Rex Dangervest who we assume is trying to help Emmett save his friends, but little do we know that everything is backwards. Rex Dangervest turns out to be the true bad guy while all the new characters from the Systar System are good and are just trying to unite their two worlds together. I didn’t see the twist coming and it really made the movie that much better having a twist that you didn’t expect.

Low: Use of Timelines

Your probably wondering, wait didn’t he just say that the twist was one of the highs of the movie? Well yes you are correct, but what I had a problem with was how confusing it was to try and understand the twist. The amount of effort it took to understand even as a grown adult left me wondering if kids really understand what was going on. In order to explain it you have to know that Rex is Emmett from the future in a different timeline. How he got there is by using time travel machines from Back to the Future, Hot Tub Time Machine, Bill & Ted, and Doctor Who. The reason he does this is because in his timeline, when he traveled through the stargate his ship got destroyed resulting in him being left under the dryer and forgotten. He slowly became angry and bitter and eventually saves himself using the time travel machines to set himself in the timeline taking place in the movie, where he tries to take his revenge out on everyone by turning Emmett into the same bitter character he is. Confused? Ya, its a lot to understand especially for a kids movie.

High: Human Point of View

In the first movie we learned that the way these Lego characters operate is by being played with by their human counterpart. The first movie we saw President Business being controlled by Will Ferrell’s character “Dad”, while Emmett and his friends controlled by his son Finn. In this one we find out that all the Diplo Lego’s are controlled by Finn’s sister Bianca. The humans side of the movie also tells a pretty nice story because we learn that the Diplo Lego’s being controlled by the sister, really just want to play with Finn and his Lego’s. But Finn doesn’t want to play with his sister causing a fight and Mom, played by Maya Rudolph, ends up telling them to pack up all the Lego’s. In the end Finn and Bianca end up learning that it is better to play together than not at all and in the process all the Lego’s become one giant set. The story is a nice little break from the Lego’s at time and gives another added story.

Conclusion

In the end it is a pretty cool follow up to the original Lego movie and does provide a pretty decent story. In the long run it kind of just is exactly what you would expect coming from the Lego movie. There is the cool twist that you didn’t see coming but in the end its just another Lego movie. The kids are sure to love it, while parents will probably enjoy the story and plot a little bit more than the original they got stuck dragging their kids too. Overall its worth seeing and taking the kids to as they are sure to have a good time.