I don’t know if it was nostalgia or pure enjoyment, but “The Lego Movie” truly brought me back to when I was young playing with Lego with my brothers, which is a great accomplishment for a children’s movie, keeping kids happy while simultaneously bringing older audiences into the shoes of the kids enjoying it with them. “The Lego Movie” accomplishes this and is an embracement of creativity and a dystopian representation of a totalitarian government makes it a great film for people of all ages, with laughs and lessons to be had.

 “The Lego Movie,” while childish, was thoroughly enjoyable even as a teenager. The kind of movie for all ages, wholesome, interesting, and with a message that lets kids know that they don’t need to follow to instruction booklet and that they all have something that makes them unique. As corny as this message sounds, the film does a great job to ground it in reality and reinforce that conformity is a pretty boring way to live.

 Fast paced action and plot makes it pretty clear this intended for the hyperstimulated children of this generation. Where the appeal lies is that anyone with an idea what Lego is will get this movie, and really understand the imaginative and creative outlet that is being expressed.  While it could have been an hour and half advertisement for Lego, instead it was more of a lesson in creativity and the importance of not being afraid to differ from the norm.

Almost like “The Matrix” for kids, “The Lego Movie” provides an interesting perspective on dystopian worlds, but for kids. The charming nature of the universe created here made it impossible for me to dislike this movie, with visits to all sorts of varied Lego worlds from popular Lego sets. The childish nature of the movie is definitely evident by the incredibly fast paced and easy to follow story but this doesn’t work against it because it makes it so fun to watch and I must have regressed to younger age because of how much I genuinely enjoyed this.

The animation was also incredibly well done, the use of CGI to create the feel of a stop motion film was most evident during a scene in the middle of an ocean that looked unlike anything I’ve ever seen in an animated movie before, and I forgot for a moment that this was CGI. While a completely stop motion movie would have been more interesting from an animation standpoint, the scope of this endeavor simply wouldn’t have worked under those conditions.

I can imagine myself showing this movie to my kids one day if I ever have them. It’s something that I would be able to simultaneously enjoy with children, and would deliver a pretty encouraging message that I wholeheartedly embraced. The pleasure derived from “The Lego Movie” is not one rooted in irony or sarcasm, but one of a nostalgic interest that brought me back to some of my favorite memories.