The Lego Movie

In a world made of Lego bricks, Emmet Brickowski is an ordinary engineer. He is content with his strictly regimented life, brushing his teeth, going to work, listening to music and eating all on a set schedule. He builds things according to the instructions and has never had an original thought in his head...apart from a secret desire to build a double-decker sofa.

Brickowski is thus shocked to discover the Piece of Resistance, an enigmatic device that is the only thing that can stop 'The Kragle', a superweapon controlled by Lord Business. This discovery was prophesied, marking Brickowski out to be 'The Special', a hero figure. But when it becomes clear that Emmet has no imagination or ability to build things without instructions, his allies must rally round and help him achieve his destiny.


The Lego Movie is, wait for it, a movie based on Lego, the Danish construction toy which is probably the single most popular toy line ever created. Lego can be used for many things, but one of the things it lacks is a narrative, with modern Lego sets often being based on pre-existing popular franchises. Cleverly, the film takes this idea and runs with it as its central theme.

The Lego Movie is a story about the struggle between order, pre-planning and logic (exemplified by the instructions and themed Lego sets) and chaos, creative freedom and throwing things together to see what happens (exemplified by putting things together randomly to see what you get). This is a bit of a bold choice as it seems to be saying that if you're offered the choice between a £300 Star Wars-themed set which requires you to vigorously follow the instructions and a cheap, random assortment of bricks you can make anything out of, you should go for the latter every time, something Lego accountants might not be too happy with. This theme is then developed into the idea that creative freedom is better than following orthodoxy and that everyone who manages to create something interesting and make their own choices is 'special'. It's fairly straightforward and simple as themes go, but it is used and explored in unusual depth.

The film is well-characterised with some fine vocal performances. The casting is fairly geek-tastic, mixing big names (Morgan Freeman, Liam Neeson, Will Ferrell, Elizabeth Banks) and TV comedy stars (Chris Pratt from Parks and Recreation, Alison Brie from Community, Will Arnett from Arrested Development, Charlie Day from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia). Relatively big names like Channing Tatum and, randomly, Shaquille O'Neal also make cameo appearances. The characters are a mix of newcomers, like Emmet (Pratt) and Wyldstyle (Banks), and crossover characters from Lego's vast array of licences. Batman (Arnett) is the most prominent such character, though we also get brief appearances from the likes of Superman (Tatum), Gandalf and Dumbledore. The big-name characters mostly appear for comical purposes (Dumbledore and Gandalf getting into an old wise man beard-off argument; Superman trying desperately to avoid hanging out with a fanboying Green Lantern) and a few make 'shocking', audience-pleasing surprise twist appearances, at least one of which brought the house down. The vocal performances are all accomplished and do a good job of selling the characters.

The animation is pretty good, especially as it deliberately dials back shiny CGI in favour of a more 'used' aesthetic that makes all of the Lego pieces used in the film look like they've been taken out of someone's box, mixed up and then constructed. In many places the animation looks like stop motion rather than the CGI it really is. The animation is inventive and the film-makers strike a good balance between making things fast-moving and fun and going for sensory overload.

The story is also surprisingly decent, mainly because the directors are not interested in making a simple movie that follows a cliched coming of age storyline. Instead the film attempts to deconstruct the Hero's Journey by casting doubt on the whole idea of 'the chosen one' and suggesting that violence and explosions aren't the answer to everything (although, cheesily, there's still quite a lot of Lego-ified violence and brick-based explosions in the film in a good example of having your cake and eating it). Most animated kids' films these days include some sort of sop to the adult audience, whether it's risque jokes that fly over the kids' heads or amusingly ironic vocal performances, but The Lego Movie takes things a whole step further by trying to simultaneously play around with and undercut the cliches and tropes of modern CG kids' movies whilst also crafting a film that kids will enjoy.

They more or less pull this off, though there's a few moments towards the ending (including one 2001: A Space Odyssey-esque moment that I suspect will be very divisive; the kids I saw the film with seemed to hate it and couldn't wait for the film to return to its previous mode, which fortunately it does) when the movie's preoccupation with not being a predictable kid's film risks it instead flying up its own posterior. It does manage to - just about - avoid that, helped by some very funny final moments (and the last line and 'cliffhanger ending' are superb) and a resolution that is both original and spectacular.

Unfortunately, the writers' creative angst is detectable on screen and as a result the films suffers from pacing and character issues which prevent it from going toe-to-toe with, say, Pixar's big hitters (films like Up and Wall-E are far more consistent in quality and have vastly more emotional depth to them). Predictably, the film's female characters have a couple of moments in the sun and are then sidelined for the rest of the movie whilst the boys get on with resolving everything (reflecting gender issues with Lego toys in general). The film's worldbuilding is also inconsistent: at various moments the characters seem able to build anything out of anything in seconds to solve problems, but at others are utterly stumped at what to do next, despite being still presumably able to construct a jet fighter out of some rocks and a couple of street lights.

Ultimately, The Lego Movie (****) is brash, fun and tries to be more than just another commercial to sell toys. Indeed, in some respects it is wickedly subversive in doing the exact opposite of what you'd expect a toy tie-in film to do. There's also some real narrative ambition here. There's some great moments of character, some good laughs and a lot of visual invention. But the film also overreaches, and denies itself from achieving true greatness by occasionally tying itself in knots in trying to be both an entertaining kid's movie and a revisionist mickey-take of kids' movies to keep the adults awake. Certainly enjoyable and well worth watching for its ambition, The Lego Movie is on general release now.

Batman: Arkham Origins

It's the coldest Christmas Eve in the history of Gotham City, with residents taking cover from a furious snowfall. Criminal gangs take advantage of the empty streets to settle old scores and pull off robberies and heists, none more virulently than the gang led by Black Mask. Batman, only a couple of years into his crime-fighting double-life, takes up the fight against Black Mask but learns that there are eight deadly assassins on his trail and a chaotic new villain has also emerged, known only as 'The Joker'.

Arkham Origins is the third game in the Arkham series of Batman games and acts as a prequel to Arkham Asylum and Arkham City. Like Arkham City, it depicts a large section of Gotham City and allows the player to free-roam through it, either pursuing the main storyline or undertaking optional side-missions. The game is heavily focused on combat, with Batman having to defeat (but not kill, due to his ethos) hundreds of henchman and criminals as well as several major enemies to progress. The game also emphasises Batman's use of gadgets to overcome obstacles, such as using a crypto-graphic sequencer to hack locks and computers or a glue grenade to block up gas vents. Finally, the game allows Batman to use his detective skills by investigating crime scenes and piecing together sequences of events from clues.

If you played and enjoyed the previous two Arkham games, Batman Origins offers a lot more of the same. Combat is mostly the same, aside from boss fights which are now more dynamic and feature more epic moments and mid-fight dialogue exchanges to make them more interesting. Investigating crime scenes is now a lot more fun, as Batman has more clues to analyse at each crime scene and as he pieces things together the player can rewind or fast-forwards through events to get a clearer idea of what happened and where more evidence might be found. These two additions to the game help differentiate it from its predecessors, but over the course of the 20+ hour game they're not really enough to overcome the feeling that you've seen it all before.

Arguably Arkham Origins's biggest failing is that it is unsuccessful in working as a prequel. Aside from showing the first meeting of Batman and the Joker and Batman and future-Commissioner Gordon, and a cameo by pre-crazy Harley Quinn, not very much play is made of the fact that this story is set earlier than the previous two games at all. It's not even an origin story, with Batman already having been fighting crime for several years. The fact that a lot of the bad guys still think that Batman is a myth means that Black Mask's decision to offer a $50 million reward for Batman's head strains credulity as well.

Where the story really falls apart is its lack of coherence. We start off with Black Mask sending eight assassins after Batman, but several of them are defeated so out-of-hand that they're completely unmemorable. The rest simply act as recurring boss fights through the game. Then, like an episode of The Simpsons, the initial set-up is forgotten quite quickly as the threat of the Joker moves to the fore, but even that gets shunted aside in favour of a showdown between Batman and Bane. Given Bane's status as one of Batman's most genuinely threatening foes due to his role in the Knightfall saga, it's a bit disappointing that Bane ends up being overused in the Arkham trilogy to the point of just turning into another disposable boss.

There are moments where Arkham Origins flirts with the superior, focused storytelling of the previous two games. A sequence where the Joker realises that he and Batman are two sides of the same coin (during a psychiatric evaluation by Quinn) is extremely well-handled and dips into the Joker's lunacy without going overboard. There's a running tension between Batman and Alfred about why Batman does what he does that occasionally sparks into life, and another between Gordon and his daughter. But every time the narrative threatens to come to life it soon fizzles out in another succession of fistfights and fairly straightforward puzzles.

Still, the Arkham trilogy's hallmark has always been the physical, visceral combat and that remains engaging, as do the set-pieces where Batman has to take down a room of heavily-armed enemies through stealth, setting traps and hiding in ventilation shafts. Arkham Origins's length - the game clocks in at slightly more than Arkham City's and more than twice the length of Arkham Asylum - does make this a little repetitive and wearing after a while. The Arkham formula is highly compelling, but Origins does threaten to drag it out past its sell-by date.

Where Arkham Origins really suffers is the amount of bugs that still litter the game even after multiple patches. Sometimes doors refuse to open until you reload. Sometimes villains and Batman lose the ability to fight and just wander around each other. Sometimes the ability to interrogate enemies after a fight just vanishes until you reload. Opening a door before you're supposed to can result in Batman falling into a bottomless abyss off the side of a level. Attack warnings sometimes fail to appear, and hitting the counter button at the right time has no effect. Most frustrating, during room-takedown set-pieces, the game will not give you the opportunity to swing to another ledge for several seconds rather than instantly as it should. In isolation some of these bugs can be borne, but combined they make playing the game more frustrating than it really should.

Batman: Arkham Origins (***) is the weakest game in the Arkham trilogy, although if you really enjoyed the gameplay of the first two it will suffice. It's certainly entertaining and fun to play, but is littered with more bugs than any modern AAA release should have and the writing is extremely uneven. Recommended, but just beware that what was incredibly fresh in Arkham Asylum has now become a little on the stale side. The game is available now in the UK (PC, PlayStation 3, X-Box 360, Wii U) and USA (PC, PlayStation 3, X-Box 360, Wii U).

Batman: Arkham City

Several months have passed since Batman defeated the Joker's attempt to take over Arkham Asylum. Unfortunately, the asylum was almost overrun by Poison Ivy's out-of-control plants in the process, rendering it useless. To replace it, a section of Gotham City's run-down docklands has been sealed off and converted into a new prison and asylum, with most of the city's most dangerous criminals incarcerated there. Appalled, Bruce Wayne enters politics in an attempt to shut down the facility, only to find himself arrested and thrown into the prison. He has to survive, find a way of resuming his Batman persona and bring down both those running the prison and defeat its array of inmates at the same time.

Arkham City is the direct sequel and follow-up to 2009's Arkham Asylum. Arkham Asylum was the game that, after dozens of failed attempts, finally 'got' the Dark Knight and made him into a credible computer game character. It did this by giving Batman a strong, dark storyline to follow, an array of gadgets to use (both in investigations and combat) and welding together the 'gritty' approach favoured by Christopher Nolan's movies with the more colourful and bizarre world of the Batman comics. It also had a great combat system and some solid stealth mechanics.

The follow-up is, inevitably, bigger and more epic. Arkham City sprawls across a much vaster area than the old asylum and is open to exploration from the very start (the asylum unlocked section-by-section as you went through the game and was more linear). The game is also divided neatly into both the main storyline and a series of side-missions, some of which are quite lengthy and involved in themselves. The main storyline involves Batman having to face (and, in some cases, work alongside) villains such as the Joker, Two-Face, the Penguin, Mr. Freeze and Ra's Al Ghul before taking on the director of the prison, the sinister Hugo Strange. However, a ton of other villains show up in the side-missions, including Deadshot, Zasz, Killer Croc (though only in a brief cameo), the Mad Hatter and Bane. Rather than feeling over-saturated, like almost any superhero movie with more than two villains, this gives the game the feeling of existing in an already-extant world, with a large amount of optional information available (via the Batcomputer) to fill players less-versed in the DC Universe on who these people are.

As with Arkham Asylum, the game involves tracking down clues to solve mysteries and beating a quite staggering number of thugs into unconsciousness. The game's setting also allows you to spend quite a lot of time perched precariously on building corners, gazing broodily into the night before spotting some passing thugs beating up a civilian and swooping down to deliver some vengeance. The setting allows you to 'be' Batman even more completely than Arkham Asylum, which is highly satisfying.

That said, the open world environment does offer some problems as well as some improvements over the first game. The first game benefited highly from its focused, linear structure that gradually opened up the asylum as you progressed (and allowing you to backtrack and reach previously-inaccessible areas with later-acquired gadgets). This second game sprawls flabbily in its opening sections, with the game taking a while to give you some sense of what you are trying to do. Once it does and you're alternating the main storyline with optional sub-missions the game kicks into a higher gear, but it's a slight disappointment that Arkham City isn't on fire from its opening moments the same way its predecessor managed.

The biggest surprise from the game is that the bigger setting doesn't necessarily translate into a notably different experience from the first game. There's about half again as much content (I completed Arkham Asylum in 11 hours and City in about 17) and a few more major locations, but the game's bigger canvas often translates in you taking three minutes of rooftop-swinging to move between locations rather than a minute of running as in in Arkham Asylum. The game - surprisingly - reuses the same locations several times over missions just as Asylum did in a clear cost-saving move, and after a while you realise that more than 90% of the buildings in the city cannot be entered or interacted with other than swinging from their rooftops. The much bigger location certainly gives rise to some new gameplay experiences, such as chasing down a serial killer on a time limit before he strikes his next victim, but it's not as transformative to the gaming experience as you might expect. In fact, after a while I was regretting the fact that we didn't have a full Gotham City game, with you being able to explore the city of Gotham as a whole and using vehicles to help complete missions as well as Batman's gadgets (which, a few minor additions aside, are pretty much the same as in the first game).

Still, if Arkham City is less of Grand Theft Gotham and more Arkham Asylum Redux, that's no bad thing. Combat is still physical and rugged, undertaken with impressive animations and combos. There's a greater variety of moves and opponents which makes the combat varied without becoming over-complex. The stealth mechanic is still enjoyable, with the game being at its best when you can take out a whole room of enemies with no-one realising where you are. The investigation side of things is still somewhat lightweight, but at least nods at Batman's detective origins. The story is decent and the voice-acting is as superb as its forebear, with Mark Hamill again taking top prizes for his gleefully deranged role as the Joker in what is his swansong appearance as the character. The scene where the Joker is taunting Batman only to get side-tracked into a puzzled analysis of the final episode of Lost is definitely the game's comic highlight. The game is, overall, a ridiculous amount of fun once you get over the slight hiccup of the start.

Arkham City (****½) is available now in the UK (PC, X-Box 360, PlayStation 3) and USA (PC, X-Box 360, PlayStation 3).