Spoiler Alert: The LEGO Movie · 5:07pm May 7th, 2014

Saw the LEGO Movie last night.

In the immortal words of Phineas Flynn, "Man, where do I begin!"
First off, the animation is excellent. I was told the morning before that the animators actually went to YouTube to pick up tips on what stop-motion LEGO looks like, and it REALLY shows. I'm still amazed that this is CG. In fact, if you look closely in the final confrontation scene, I'm pretty sure that there are YouTube LEGO videos running in the background.
Now, I have to say, when I heard the premise of this film a couple years back, I thought the filmmakers were bat-#%&$ crazy. Not for making a CG, theatrically released LEGO movie. That was brilliant. But you're telling me that you had characters from DC Comics, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Speed Racer, Bionicle, the Simpsons, and real history together in the same film, and you make the protagonist a generic construction worker?! Are you freaking kidding me?!?! What a waste of opportunity!!
….And I was flat-out wrong. While I still wouldn't mind seeing a quest film with Abraham Lincoln leading Batman, Han Solo, Gandalf, and Michelangelo to victory, what we got was better. We got a film with brand-new, surprisingly interesting characters tackling some of the strongest issues involved with the LEGO fan community, while still making it accessible to the people who have little connection to it. It comes naturally from a conflict that is very real among LEGO fans (my father has criticized the current sets more than once for being too reliant on instructions), while having a broader appeal as a criticism of corporate control and intolerance.
Chris Pratt, who we shall see later in the year as Star-Lord in Guardians of the Galaxy (What is this shameless plug-in you speak of?), makes a great leading hero. Not only do they actually come up with a legitimate reason that this character is the main hero (something which is almost never done with savior-archtypes), but he's also surprisingly poignant. Most idiot heroes have little to no emotional appeal, relying solely on humor and expecting us to relate to them just because they're quote-on-quote "normal." Emmet, on the other hand, has real emotional issues, and I actually felt sorry for him and the way he was treated less than a half-hour into the film.
Will Ferrel delivered the first dramatic role I think I've ever seen him deliver, creating a villain who is understandable and memorable, with a unique motivation for villainy that doesn't prevent him from delivering a fun, hammy B-villain performance for most of the movie.
Will Arnett as Batman delivers the kind of humorous Batman that we need…but not the one we deserve…or…wait…was it the other way around?

I don't know, but he's really good. Instead of delivering an out of nowhere character who has nothing to do with Batman (I'm looking at you forrestfire101), he instead gives us one that's based off of Batman's actual flaws: pride, emotional distance, obnoxious theatricality, etc.
All of the other characters are a fun, entertaining bunch, from Unikitty to WildStyle to Benny to Metalbeard to Good Cop/Bad Cop to Vitruvius and beyond.
I was a little surprised to see Green Lantern treated as a b-list hero, but given that the only Green Lantern minifigure is from the live-action movie, I can see why they treated him as a joke.

The humor's spot-on, ranging from your usual-physical gags to a butt-load of fantastic in-jokes.
Overall, this was phenomenal. This could have been the greatest commercial since The Wizard, but this chose to be something better. It's a love letter to the fans, both young and old, that goes right to the heart of why this franchise has lasted so gosh-darn long. It's beautiful, funny, emotional, thematic, smart work. I almost cried a couple of times, I felt so nostalgic.
Honestly, I almost never say this, but I can't bring myself to say anything bad about this film. It's just that good. In fact, I think the movie said it best: