
It’s all done in Lego bricks and minifigs, true - oh, the clarity of the plastic in 3D IMAX! - and it hilariously sends up every trope of the dramatic and critical superhero battle. Of course Batman (the voice of Will Arnett: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, Men in Black III) stops them. But this opening sequence goes beyond even that: it brings together just about every bad guy Batman has ever battled - well, the Joker (the voice of Zach Galifianakis: Keeping Up with the Joneses, Birdman) brings them together - in a mad plot to bring an ultimate destruction to Gotham City. Look: Lego Batman opens with 15 minutes of all-in, all-out action smash-up spectacular, the sort of thing typically considered suitable these days to serve as the climax of a superhero flick: the ending of the film, not the beginning. This is the most gloriously bonkers expression ever of the sublime silliness of crime fighters in capes and tights, and the outrageously over-the-top supervillains they love to hate, and our worship of tales of their exploits. Making fun of all the ridiculous clichés and motifs of superhero stories allows Lego Batman to transcend them even as it celebrates them. And that’s not in spite of the fact that, yes, it is a parody of Batman, but because of that. It’s a great superhero movie… definitely among the best ones ever. The Lego Batman Movie is a great Batman movie. All of that could have happened, I suppose, but it didn’t.
