the lego ninjago movie review

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The pieces are all there, but they never really snap into place in “The LEGO Ninjago Movie.”

The feature-film version of the long-running animated TV series “Ninjago: Masters of Spinjitzu” only superficially resembles its source material, and it pales in comparison to its cinematic predecessors. Maybe such diminishing returns were inevitable. It would be impossible to recreate the groundbreaking, lightning-in-a-bottle innovation of 2014’s “ The Lego Movie .” We saw that earlier this year with the release of “ The Lego Batman Movie ,” which was consistently zippy and amusing but, inevitably, not quite as novel.

Now we have “The LEGO Ninjago Movie,” about a group of teenagers who are secretly ninjas, each with a special elemental power. Their challenge is to take on the evil Lord Garmadon (voiced by Justin Theroux ), who also happens to be the father of the team’s Green Ninja, Lloyd ( Dave Franco ). But while the film is credited to three directors ( Charlie Bean , Paul Fisher and Bob Logan ) and a small army of writers, it results in only a few clever ideas that are chuckle-worthy, at best.

Its strongest bit is the introduction of a live-action cat within this animated setting—dubbed Meowthra in an homage to classic, Japanese movie monsters—who terrorizes Ninjago City when she’s accidentally summoned with a red laser pointer. But the enjoyment of the absurd sight of a cat knocking over Lego buildings lasts about as long as your average viral video—and then you’re stuck realizing how little there is to the script.

Part of the problem is that “The LEGO Ninjago Movie” is primarily about Lloyd struggling with his daddy issues and Garmadon trying to figure out whether and how to be a father to Lloyd, whom he hasn’t seen since the boy’s infancy. And aside from Lloyd, the other ninjas are essentially interchangeable, which is a huge departure from the television show. (I have a son who’s almost eight. We watch a lot of “Ninjago” in this house. Ask me anything.) The supporting players’ names and nature-related abilities are all the same—water, lightning, fire, etc.—but they have no discerning personalities beyond that. They are background noise. They are filler.

What’s so bizarre about that is that the longtime voice performers from the TV series—who’ve been playing these characters for seven seasons now—have all been replaced with better-known actors and comedians, who then get surprisingly little to do. Nothing against them—they’re all great and they’re solid voice talent, people you’re happy to see whether they appear in TV or film—but they’re not given enough material to justify overhauling the entire cast. The shift seems like a cynical ploy to make the movie more marketable.

For the record, they are Kumail Nanjiani (Jay), Fred Armisen (Cole), Michael Pena (Kai), Abbi Jacobson (Nya) and Zach Woods (Zane). Jackie Chan plays their wise leader, Master Wu, and Olivia Munn has a small supporting role as Lloyd’s mom, Koko.

“LEGO Ninjago” also suffers from its live-action bookend narrative structure, featuring Chan as a store owner who tells the legend of Ninjago to a wide-eyed kid. All that does is explain the presence of the cat and it gets the film’s pacing off to a sluggish start from which it never fully recovers.

What it could have used more of was world-building, literally and figuratively. What makes this place different from every other? What makes it better than the world of “The Lego Movie,” where everything was awesome? That movie efficiently and effectively laid out its parameters and characters. This one drops you in—so if you don’t know the show, you’ll have no connection to this setting. Having said that, if you’re a fan of the show, you’ll be struck by how little the movie has in common with it.

Despite the grander scale (and bigger budget), the movie doesn’t use the Legos for the thing that makes them fun: the building aspect of them, the possibility of creativity, the way they allow you to push boundaries and come up with structures and characters that maybe don’t make any sense, but they’re cool-looking. “LEGO Ninjago” is essentially an ordinary animated film, with visuals rendered in Lego form.

And sometimes the visuals are so garbled, this may as well be a “ Transformers ” movie, especially as the ninjas climb inside their various mecha to fly/climb/fight/etc. against Garmadon to keep him from destroying Ninjago City. Along those lines, the sound mix often made it hard to hear the quips, one-liners and banter, especially during the big action sequences, of which there are many. Then again, the jokes and the energy as a whole lack the infectious nature of previous Lego movies.

Since we’re making all the inevitable comparisons, it’s hard to shake the sensation that Theroux is essentially doing Will Arnett doing Batman in the previous two Lego movies. He brings an amusing buffoonery to this alleged super-villain—a clueless bravado, a total lack of self-awareness—but we’ve heard this shtick before. Even the husky swagger of Theroux’s delivery recalls Arnett’s performances, and it serves as yet another reminder of how superior the predecessors were.

And as my son pointed out after a screening of the film (between bursts of singing the TV show’s insanely catchy theme song) the ninjas don’t even do spinjitzu, their stylized martial-arts technique using their signature elemental powers. Not really—not until the end. But maybe we’ll see more of that in the sequel, which is certainly on the horizon, whether it’s merited or not.

Christy Lemire

Christy Lemire is a longtime film critic who has written for RogerEbert.com since 2013. Before that, she was the film critic for The Associated Press for nearly 15 years and co-hosted the public television series "Ebert Presents At the Movies" opposite Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, with Roger Ebert serving as managing editor. Read her answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

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Film credits.

The LEGO Ninjago Movie (2017)

Rated PG for some mild action and rude humor.

101 minutes

Dave Franco as Lloyd (voice)

Michael Peña as Kai (voice)

Jackie Chan as Master Wu (voice)

Kumail Nanjiani as Jay (voice)

Zach Woods as Zane (voice)

Fred Armisen as Cole (voice)

Olivia Munn as Koko (voice)

Justin Theroux as Garmadon (voice)

Abbi Jacobson as Nya (voice)

Ali Wong as General Olivia (voice)

• Charlie Bean
• Paul Fisher

Writer (story by)

• Hilary Winston
• William Wheeler
• Tom Wheeler
• Dan Hageman
• Kevin Hageman
• Jared Stern
• John Whittington
• David Burrows
• Garret Elkins
• Ryan Folsey
• Julie Rogers
• John Venzon
• Mark Mothersbaugh

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The lego ninjago movie, common sense media reviewers.

Plenty of fake kung fu in fun comedy with toy ninjas.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Intended to entertain rather than educate, but kid

The messages are positive but not deeply explored.

Good guys show courage in the face of long odds, a

Frequent but intentionally unrealistic fighting/ac

Some rude humor. Use of "oh my gosh" and "what the

It doesn't get more product-placement-y than this.

Parents need to know that The Lego Ninjago Movie -- based on the popular Lego Ninjago TV show and toy line -- is appropriate for most kids, packing plenty of laughs along with clear (if not particularly deep) messages of empowerment, acceptance, and courage. While there's a fair bit of fighting…

Educational Value

Intended to entertain rather than educate, but kids will learn a bit about Lego characters and pieces, as well as lessons about forgiveness.

Positive Messages

The messages are positive but not deeply explored. There are clear themes of self-empowerment, forgiveness, and acceptance, plus reconciliation and prioritizing family.

Positive Role Models

Good guys show courage in the face of long odds, and bad guys come around to see the light. There are two strong female characters, but they take a back seat to the males. Ethnicity/race isn't an issue, as the characters are Lego figures (though the voice cast is fairly diverse).

Violence & Scariness

Frequent but intentionally unrealistic fighting/action. Blasters are fired. One character loses an arm, but it's played for laughs, and because the characters are Lego figures, it's not a permanent loss. The action comes in set pieces that resemble kids' play, with nonspecific hits in the kung fu-like scenes and human sound effects for blasters ("Pew! Pew! Pew!").

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Some rude humor. Use of "oh my gosh" and "what the heck."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

It doesn't get more product-placement-y than this. The whole movie could be considered an ad for Lego sets, as well as the Ninjago TV series, etc. The Lego brand name is frequently visible.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that The Lego Ninjago Movie -- based on the popular Lego Ninjago TV show and toy line -- is appropriate for most kids, packing plenty of laughs along with clear (if not particularly deep) messages of empowerment, acceptance, and courage. While there's a fair bit of fighting/action (along the lines of earlier Lego movies), it's not constant -- and since it's meant to evoke how kids play with toys, it doesn't resemble anything realistic, whether it's kung fu-like scenes or blasters being fired. There's talk of parents breaking up, but no emotionally challenging moments related to the topic. While it's not the lightning in a bottle that The Lego Movie was, it will entertain adults nearly as much as it will younger audiences. As with all Lego movies, shows, and games, it also serves as a feature-length toy ad -- but you may not care because it's good fun. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Community Reviews

• Parents say (23)
• Kids say (78)

Based on 23 parent reviews

Really cool movie

What's the story.

In the Lego town of Ninjago, a mysterious force of good ninjas stands against the repeated assaults of Lord Garmadon (voiced by Justin Theroux ). Their leader ( Dave Franco ) is secretly Lord Garmadon's son, Lloyd (or as Garmadon says, "L-loyd"), an outcast in the town for nothing but his villainous heritage. When the absentee dad finally takes over Ninjago, Lloyd, his fellow ninjas, and their wise master ( Jackie Chan ) must go on a quest to find a secret capable of defeating Lord Garmadon and the "terrible" monster they've accidentally unleashed. Got that? There's also a shorter version: THE LEGO NINJAGO MOVIE is an empowerment movie with family-reconciliation elements and lots of jokes.

Is It Any Good?

This kid-friendly adventure rises above any potential Lego fatigue with sly humor and strong voice performances. Which is notable, because The Lego Ninjago Movie has a few strikes against it going in: an animation style we've now seen quite a bit, a familiar hero's-journey plot, three directors and 12 (yes, 12) writers credited between story and screenplay. At times, it can feel -- ahem -- assembled from incongruous pieces. That's seen in its on-again, off-again cheeky kung fu movie tribute feel, snapped together with obligatory positive messaging and product placement. Fortunately, it's all accompanied by some wacky laughs. For instance, by way of explaining how a character became a villain, there's a visual joke about his "unstable foundations." Plus, there are pop culture riffs and a fake 3D sequence. But perhaps the best-sustained gag is the nature of the movie's big monster (which we won't reveal here).

All of the Lego movies have had enviable voice casts, and Ninjago boasts one of the most interesting. Apart from leads Franco and Theroux ( The Leftovers ), who sounds as if he's having a whale of a time as the villainous dad, the legendary Chan appears in two roles. Chan and Theroux get most of the laughs. Other nice ninjas are voiced by Kumail Nanjiani ( Silicon Valley , The Big Sick ), Zach Woods (also of Silicon Valley ), Michael Peña (memorable in everything from Crash to Ant-Man ), and Abbi Jacobson ( Broad City ). You can't help but wonder how their talents might have been used with a more integrated script. But what ends up on screen is easily the second-best Lego movie so far. It's funny, it looks good, the messages are positive, and it's less chaotic than Lego Batman . Good stuff for a family movie night.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the action/fighting in The Lego Ninjago Movie . Did you find any of it scary? Why or why not? How much scary stuff can young kids handle?

The main character's dad is a villain who left the family. Most of the movie is about them coming to an understanding with each other. Kids: What do you think of where their relationship ends up?

Sensei Wu goes to extremes to get his charges to listen to him. Why do you think he has to do that? Kids: Do you always listen to smart adults who are trying to help you (be honest!)?

Kids: Does anyone at your school get judged unfairly by their peers? Do you know people who are treated badly for reasons other than who they really are inside?

Movie Details

• In theaters : September 22, 2017
• On DVD or streaming : December 19, 2017
• Cast : Dave Franco , Justin Theroux , Jackie Chan
• Directors : Charlie Bean , Paul Fisher , Bob Logan
• Inclusion Information : Asian actors
• Studio : Warner Bros.
• Genre : Family and Kids
• Topics : Sports and Martial Arts , Adventures
• Character Strengths : Courage
• Run time : 100 minutes
• MPAA rating : PG
• MPAA explanation : some mild action and rude humor
• Award : Common Sense Selection
• Last updated : May 23, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

Suggest an Update

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The LEGO NINJAGO Movie Reviews

Easy entertainment for the kids even if it's not as original as the others...

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Nov 5, 2020

There is still a lot of the old LEGO charm floating around...

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 1, 2020

When I say this is my least favorite of the three Lego animated films, I don't mean that as an insult... In fact, The LEGO Ninjago Movie is still quite spirited, funny, and fully enjoyable.

Full Review | May 13, 2020

The film is so high-energy and desperate to keep your attention that it becomes rather exhausting to watch, like spending 97 minutes with a child that's overloaded on sugar.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jan 27, 2020

The LEGO Ninjago Movie aims younger for its target audience, and while it's still enjoyable, it doesn't quite reach the peak of its predecessors.

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | May 17, 2019

The low point of the Lego franchise drops the ball hard by being a warmer, fuzzier retread of the first two films.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Mar 21, 2019

A perfectly pleasant way to pass 90 minutes or so, but adult viewers looking to revisit the heartwarming silliness of The Lego Movie or the breathless gag rate of Lego Batman are advised to look elsewhere in the Brickverse.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 21, 2019

I left feeling pretty underwhelmed.

Full Review | Original Score: C | Feb 20, 2019

While I may have been let down on some levels by this film, The LEGO Ninjago Movie still offers a good time, even for those with no familiarity with the toy line.

Full Review | Original Score: 6.75/10 | Dec 8, 2018

You could tell that the kids in the theaters were enjoying what they were watching...they do need to up the ante in further installments, though.

Full Review | Nov 12, 2018

One is not quite sure where the true forum for 'The Lego Ninjago Movie' should be promoted...on the straight-to-video shelves or merely being trapped in a cluttered toy box with other forgettable action figures.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/4 | Nov 9, 2018

It doesn't quite have the sharp pacing and across-the-board humor as the previous two films, but it is still lots of fun with enough moments to appease the entire family.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Oct 31, 2018

It's kind of amazing how much better this send-up of the whole Power Rangers aesthetic is than the actual Power Rangers movie.

Full Review | Original Score: 3 | Oct 31, 2018

This film lacks the depth and wit that made the previous LEGO films a hit with all ages and critics.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 10, 2018

The franchise may be running out of steam because I'm starting to get 'LEGO' fatigue.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 30, 2018

While clueless adults will notice that this is the least amusing Lego movie yet, wise small children will note the presence of ninjas, some riding dragons, and enter a state of cinematic bliss.

Full Review | Aug 23, 2018

It's Lego-Power Rangers...it is straight up the plot of Might Morphin Power Rangers the movie.

Full Review | Feb 21, 2018

This is still a solid LEGO movie with a great voice cast.

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | Feb 2, 2018

The action is non-stop, the jokes (though aimed a little lower than usual) are rapid-fire, and the Lego world of bright colors and mechs and machines is something that Lego fans can enjoy.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Jan 16, 2018

It's certainly brash and breezy enough to keep youngsters mildly amused, though adults may well agree that it's time to say leggo to Lego, which isn't even an element crucial to much of this underwhelming adventure.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Dec 21, 2017

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‘The LEGO Ninjago Movie’ Review: Warner Bros. Keeps Building the World’s Most Consistently Great Animated Franchise

David ehrlich.

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You probably know what LEGO are, and you probably know who Batman is (don’t say “Bruce Wayne, Gotham’s billionaire playboy”), and that brand awareness helped to propel 2015’s “The LEGO Movie” and this February’s “The LEGO Batman Movie” into massive hits that transcended their target audience, appealing equally to adults and children alike. On the other hand — and this is a scientific fact — not a single person who’s gone through puberty has ever heard of “Ninjago.” Ninjas? Sure. The concept of going ? Absolutely. But “Ninjago”? That’s definitely not a real thing, let alone a popular line of toys that’s spawned graphic novels, video games, and a television show that’s now been on the air for six full seasons.

And yet, Warner Bros. continues to insists otherwise, the studio inexplicably dedicating the pivotal third film of their massive LEGO movie franchise to a property that most people can’t even pronounce correctly (it’s “Nin-JAH-go,” because the more obvious way of saying it might too strongly imply the inclusion of actual ninjas). They own the rights for everything from Harry Potter to Godzilla — not to mention the entire DC cinematic universe — and yet they went with a “Power Rangers” ripoff about some anonymous teenage block toys riding mecha dragons or something.

Good for them. In doing so, WB has shown that the LEGO saga can thrive without a superhero starting point (or the vocal talents of Chris Pratt). Every bit as irreverent, smart, and ridiculously entertaining as its predecessors, “ The LEGO Ninjago Movie ” proves that these films are now on the brink of becoming a viable brand unto themselves; it cements them as the most consistently delightful franchise in the contemporary world of corporate animation. Nothing else comes close.

But seriously, where the hell are all the ninjas? And why does something with such explicitly Japanese origins open with a logo that riffs on the (Chinese) Shaw Brothers? Needless to say, anyone expecting “The LEGO Ninjago Movie” to be a historically accurate (or racially sensitive) experience may need to adjust their expectations — capitalism is the only culture that matters here, even if Lord Business is missing in action. The futuristic megalopolis of Ninjago wasn’t really built with specifics in mind; on the contrary, the whole thing is just kind of vaguely Asian, an opportunistic fusion of symbols and references that suggest a part of the world without meaningfully representing it. The cityscape is dotted with torii gates, swamped in kung fu tropes, and reverberating with white voices.

There are, however, a few exceptions to that rule. One of them is Kumail Nanjiani. Another is Jackie Chan — the martial arts legend shows up in his full glory, playing the owner of an exotic antique store in the film’s flat and wholly useless live-action framing device. But things pick up considerably soon after that, as a hyper daytime talkshow parody (complete with LEGO Michael Strahan and Robin Roberts) hurls us into the kind of frenetic cartoon world that fans of this franchise have come to expect. In fact, the mode here is so familiar that initial fears “The LEGO Ninjago Movie” will be watered down from the series’ previous incarnations are soon replaced by fears that it copies them too closely. Like “The LEGO Movie” and “The LEGO Batman Movie” before it, this one is all about daddy issues, its frequently hilarious script (credited to five different writers) once again internalizing the idea that families can be pulled apart and put back together.

Dave Franco voices Lloyd Garmadon, a lifelong outcast thanks to the fact that his absentee father, Lord Garmadon ( Justin Theroux ), keeps trying to conquer Ninjago with his army of replaceable generals and his bottomless stockpile of shark-themed weaponry. But Lloyd has a secret: He moonlights as the mysterious Green Ninja (a ninja in name alone), a key member of the resistance group that always saves the city from his old man. Other fighters in the group include Nya (Abbi Jacobson), Cole (Fred Armisen), and Zane (Zach Woods), the latter of whom is a robot for some reason. These characters merely have moments, not arcs. Their leader is the wise old Master Wu (Jackie Chan again), and he will eventually inspire his disciples to embark upon a dangerous journey in order to find the Ultimate Ultimate Weapon, which is needed to defeat the fearsome Meowthra after Lloyd accidentally summons the beast by using the ultimate weapon (just one “ultimate”) as part of a desperate attempt to subdue Lord Garmadon.

Meowthra, you should know, is a cat. Like… a regular, live-action cat who’s been inserted into a fully CG environment. To the citizens of Ninjago, he’s a giant Kaiju with paws capable of pulverizing entire city blocks; to us, he’s… a cat. The effect is laugh-out-loud funny literally every time. More than that, it continues the franchise’s brilliant tradition of conceiving its film worlds with the imagination of a kid playing with their toys; anyone who grew up with a pet will remember how intrusive an animal could be to an elaborate fantasy game, and how urgent it would then become to fold the creature into the narrative.

Although only the saddest and most neglected of children could have imagined a villain as callous as Lord Garmadon. Combining Darth Vader’s looks (and his parenting skills), Dr. Evil’s obsession with sharks (and his parenting skills), and Donald Trump’s complete antipathy towards all forms of life (and his parenting skills), Lord Garmadon is the same type of mega-narcissist that’s defined the other two LEGO Movies. At one point, Lloyd tells Lord Garmadon that he ruined his life, to which the evil warlord obliviously responds: “How could I ruin your life, I wasn’t even there.” That’s a fiendishly cold bit of dialogue that might hit a bit too close to home for a lot of viewers, but every line that Theroux delivers in this film is funny; even the lines that aren’t funny are funny. His sing-songy cartoon voice (similar to the one he busted out in “Wanderlust”) is a perfect fit for the tone of this franchise, and there’s a fine art to the way Theroux undersells the little things, like the fact that Lord Garmadon refuses to learn the correct pronunciation of his own son’s first name (he calls him “Luh-Loyed,” because he’s stumped by the double “l”).

If anything, Theroux and Franco make such a sweet team that it’s easy to overlook how flimsy the film’s emotional backbone can feel. There are all sorts of faux-inspirational ideas and cheap Hallmark sentiments scattered throughout this story of a father working with his estranged son to defeat the mighty Meowthra and save Ninjago, but most of them seem purely ornamental. There’s nothing here that captures the same emotional power of the Lord Business twist at the end of “The LEGO Movie,” or the depth of feeling that flows between the orphaned Bruce Wayne and his new sidekick in “The LEGO Batman Movie.” But neither of those films has a cat destroying a LEGO city, so let’s just call it even.

Also, “The LEGO Ninjago Movie” compensates for the relative obscurity of its toy line by having the franchise’s most aggressively random sense of humor; you have to respect any kids’ movie that’s hiding a “Locke” joke up its sleeve. Yes, “Locke,” the one where Tom Hardy is just in his car the whole time. There’s definitely a fear that audiences could get burned out on the sarcastic style of sensory overload that has come to define Warner Bros’ animation behemoth, but when even the studio’s most seemingly ill-advised attempts are this much fun, it’s tough to imagine that people will start complaining anytime soon.

“The LEGO Ninjago Movie” opens in theaters on Friday, September 22.

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Film Review: ‘The Lego Ninjago Movie’

The third entry in the Lego film franchise is still plenty of fun, but the formula is beginning to wear thin.

By Andrew Barker

Andrew Barker

Senior Features Writer

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Before delving into the merits of “ The Lego Ninjago Movie ,” it’s worth pausing to reflect on just how remarkable it is that the third film in a cinematic franchise based on plastic children’s construction toys comes with high expectations attached. Before Lego launched its own film empire, other toy companies like Hasbro had established assembly lines of often profitable, invariably awful branded theatrical entertainments, and there was no reason to expect anything different from Lego. Yet 2014’s “The Lego Movie” and last spring’s “The Lego Batman Movie” surprised just about everyone by being smart, sophisticated, cognizant of their own synergistic origins, and most importantly, actual movies. That the Lego Cinematic Universe (LCU) became a recognizable acronym isn’t surprising; that it came to signify quality is almost miraculous.

Superficially, “Ninjago” is very much in line with its predecessors. Based on Lego’s ninja-themed original property – already a Cartoon Network TV show – the film is a hyperkinetic assault of eye-catching faux stop-motion animation; packed with clever, self-aware, and sometimes boldly absurdist humor; and all anchored by a father-son conflict that the film takes more seriously than is strictly necessary. Yet for the first time, the franchise’s house-style is beginning to show signs of wear. Whereas “The Lego Movie” and “Lego Batman” seemed to come by their cheeky irreverence naturally, the sketchier “Ninjago” sometimes strains to keep up the pace, with its anarchic sensibility now having the air of a mandate – and few tones are harder to maintain than “mandatory irreverence.” Still plenty entertaining and occasionally very funny, “Ninjago” nonetheless displays symptoms of diminishing returns, and Lego might want to shuffle its pieces a bit before building yet another film with this same model.

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“Ninjago” takes place in the vaguely Japanese city of Ninjago, located on Ninjago Island, where residents wake up each morning watching “Good Morning Ninjago” with Lego Michael Strahan and Lego Robin Roberts. They’re never at a loss for news stories: Ninjago is attacked roughly once a day by the four-armed megalomaniac Garmadon ( Justin Theroux ) and his army of henchmen, who live in a conveniently located active volcano just off the island’s shores. And, roughly once a day, they’re repelled by a sextet of masked teenage ninjas who do battle in elaborate mechanical warcraft.

A tongue-in-cheek mashup of “Power Rangers,” “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” and “Captain Planet,” these ninjas are coached by gnomic sensei Master Wu (Jackie Chan, also glimpsed in live-action bookend segments) and each have color-codings and martial styles rooted in various elements: We have red fire ninja Kai (Michael Pena), black earth ninja Cole (Fred Armisen), grey water ninja Nya (Abbi Jacobson), blue lightning ninja Jay (Kumail Nanjiani) and white ice ninja Zane (Zach Woods), an android whose character seems modeled entirely on the Steve Buscemi “how do you do, fellow kids” meme. Getting the short end of the stick here is the green ninja, Lloyd ( Dave Franco ), whose elemental power is…”green.” Even worse, though he attracts cheering crowds in his green ninja costume, the civilian Lloyd is best known for being Garmadon’s estranged son, and he has a hard time navigating high school when he’s blamed for his father’s rampages.

Lloyd’s Oedipal angst hits a peak when Garmadon butt-dials him on his 16 th birthday, vaguely surprised to learn that his son is no longer an infant. Lloyd channels his anger into fighting, but when Garmadon arrives equipped with an impenetrable power-suit, Lloyd steals Master Wu’s ultimate weapon – a laser pointer that attracts an enormous cat demon (played by an actual, non-Lego cat) who promptly begins destroying the city. To vanquish the kitty, the ninjas must go on a quest to retrieve the ultimate -ultimate weapon, and end up capturing Garmadon along the way, allowing for some belated father-son bonding.

Like both previous Lego movies, “Ninjago” throws most of its comic energy into its first act, piling up so many incidental jokes, sight-gags and non sequiturs that absorbing them all is nearly impossible. (Among the better ones: the barely audible “cancel the victory cake” announcement over the volcano lair loudspeaker after Garmadon’s latest failure, and the fact that Armisen’s ninja is also a DJ for no particular reason.)

But the comedown into the film’s sparer, slower final two-thirds is particularly pronounced here, with a few too many repetitions of running gags, and a stacked voice cast largely squandered on supporting characters with the barest traces of personality. The pop-culture references begin to lose their luster as well, and by the time Master Wu starts playing Guns ‘n’ Roses on bamboo flute, the film veers dangerously close to early Dreamworks-style snark. Unsurprisingly for a film with three directors, six screenwriters, and an additional three “story by” credits, “Ninjago’s” overall narrative has been committee-thought down to a rather conventional template that couldn’t be more at odds with its freewheeling jokes.

“Ninjago” is beautifully animated, however, even if it’s a bit less comprehensively Lego-y than usual, with brickless water, fireballs and flora abounding. Among the Lego films’ greatest pleasures is the way one starts watching hyperaware of the obsessive detail put into the digital bricolage, only to gradually start believing in the world it creates. That’s no different here, and as long as the company proves more willing to give its storytellers leeway to shake up the formulas, there’s plenty of potential for invention and surprise left in this toy box.

Reviewed at Arclight Cinemas, Hollywood, September 19, 2017. MPAA rating: PG. Running time: 101 MINS.

• Production: A Warner Bros. release and presentation in association with Ratpac-Dune of a Lin Pictures, Lord Miller, Vertigo Entertainment production. Produced by Dan Lin, Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, Chris McKay, Maryann Garger, Roy Lee. Executive producers, Will Allegra, Seth Grahame-Smith, John Powers Middleton, Steven Mnuchin, Zareh Nalbandian, James Packer, Jill Wilfert.
• Crew: Directed by Charlie Bean, Paul Fisher, Bob Logan. Screenplay: Logan, Fisher, William Wheeler, Tom Wheeler, Jared Stern, John Whittington, from a story by Hilary Winston, Logan, Fisher, Wheeler, Wheeler, Dan Hageman, Kevin Hageman, based on "Lego Ninjago" by the Lego Group. Editors: David Burrows, Garret Elkins, Ryan Folsey, Julie Rogers, John Venzon. Music: Mark Mothersbaugh.
• With: Dave Franco, Justin Theroux, Jackie Chan, Michael Pena, Kumail Nanjiani, Abbi Jacobson, Zach Woods, Fred Armisen, Olivia Munn, Michael Strahan, Robin Roberts.

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‘The LEGO Ninjago Movie’ Review: Cute and Funny Despite a Familiar Construction

Although the plot feels like it’s being drawn from the template of previous ‘LEGO’ movies, there’s still plenty to enjoy with this latest spinoff.

The LEGO Ninjago Movie is the first LEGO movie where I went in not having much of an investment on what happened. I cared about The LEGO Movie because I like LEGO, and I cared about The LEGO Batman Movie because I like Batman, but Ninjago is a LEGO sub-brand where I’ve never really been caught up with the toys (basically Japanese-inspired mechs) or the Cartoon Network series LEGO Ninjago: Masters of Spinjitzu . And yet what The LEGO Ninjago Movie shows is that these LEGO movies have now established an identity outside of the initial brand, and they can stand on their own as light, funny family comedies. While it’s the weakest of the three LEGO movies thus far, it’s still surprisingly sweet and charming even if its plot elements are reminiscent of the first two LEGO films.

Lloyd ( Dave Franco ) is a teenager living with his mom Koko ( Olivia Munn ) in the city of Ninjago, which is constantly under assault by Lloyd’s estranged father, Garmadon ( Justin Theroux ). Lloyd is pretty much a social pariah due to his father’s actions, which is made even more frustrating by the fact that Lloyd and his friends Cole ( Fred Armisen ), Jay ( Kumail Nanjiani ), Kai ( Michael Pena ), Nya ( Abbi Jacobson ), and Zane ( Zach Woods ) are secretly ninjas who protect the city every time Garmadon comes to town. When Lloyd accidentally unleashes the Ultimate Weapon on the city, he and his friends must team up with Garmadon to find the Ultimate, Ultimate Weapon and save Ninjago.

So stop me if you’ve heard this one before: There’s an outcast, young guy who must save his city from a nefarious father figure, and it turns out the solution to the problem is not to defeat one’s enemy, but to work with them for the greater good. That father-son reconciliation features in The LEGO Movie and The LEGO Batman Movie as does working with the villain (Lord Business, Joker, Garmadon) to save the day.  That’s not to say that the films are redundant, but they’ve clearly found plot beats that they’re comfortable with, and they don’t really want to rock the boat or dynamics they’ve set up.  Although that may end up getting tedious sooner rather than later, for now it works since most other family films (and blockbuster films in general) are about competition and domination rather than collaboration and reconciliation.

For now, the formula works, especially since the filmmakers have a strong read on the kind of comedy they want to do in these movies. If you liked the humor in The LEGO Movie and The LEGO Batman Movie , you’ll probably be on board with what’s happening Ninjago . Although LEGO Movie is a bit sharper and Batman has the benefit of satirizing a widely beloved character, Ninjago coasts along simply being cute and funny. It has no problem leaning into an extended joke where Lloyd, disguised as the Green Ninja, tries to get Garmadon to admit that he feels remorse for abandoning his child only to have Garmadon keep coming back to inconsequential regrets like missing out on his favorite sushi place. It’s frequently silly, but I can’t really complain since I had a big smile plastered on my face throughout the film.

It’s almost a shame that with so many good moments between Lloyd and Garmadon, the script doesn’t spread the love around so we get to know the supporting cast better. Lloyd’s friends rarely get to be much more than the background ninjas, and while you might get the broadest characterizations—Zane is secretly a robot, Nya is a girl, Jay is kind of timid, Cole is into music—there’s really not much shading there to differentiate them. This is Lloyd’s story, and his focus on Garmadon makes the friendships feel hollow to the point where we’re left to wonder why these five teens decided to give Lloyd a shot while the rest of the world views him with disdain.

Although it doesn’t hit as well as The LEGO Movie or The LEGO Batman Movie , The LEGO Ninjago movie is still a delight, and a promising path forward for future LEGO spinoffs. The animation looks better than ever, and there’s a nice combination of humor and heart at the center of the film. Even if you have no affinity for the Ninjago brand or never watched an episode of the TV series, you’ll still find plenty to enjoy with these silly little ninjas.

The Lego Ninjago Movie Review

13 Oct 2017

101 minutes

The Lego Ninjago Movie

Like accidentally standing barefoot on a plastic brick, 2014’s The Lego Movie sent a jolt up the nervous system of family-friendly animated movies. Early dismissals as a corporate cash-in were quickly quashed when directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller channelled their earlier hits, bringing the energy of Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs and irony of 21 Jump Street to create something truly fresh: a fun fantasy romp, and a metatextual parenting parable, in a single well-constructed package. Everything was indeed awesome, especially for the Warner Bros. coffers. The lure of a franchise, inevitably, proved strong.

Hugely entertaining — though it could do with being less of a chip off the old block.

The Lego Batman Movie was next in this burgeoning brick-ematic universe, and now hard on its plastic heels some seven months later comes this, the first in the series not to use characters from the original film. Instead the source comes from the ‘Ninjago’ line of products sold by the Danish brick brand, a vaguely Japanese martial-arts-meets-mechanised-droids theme which has already inspired a TV cartoon. Since most mainstream audiences will be unfamiliar with the range, we’re introduced to the new world via a whimsical Princess Bride-esque old storyteller played by Jackie Chan, who neatly bookends the film in live action. And, echoing the conceit of the first film, other live-action elements are ingeniously incorporated into the animation.

Using Lego minifigures as props, Chan tells the story of Ninjago, a mysterious place far away, existing (like Big Hero 6 ’s San Fransokyo) in a mid-Pacific approximation of East and West. The residents of Ninjago live under constant threat from the tyranny of Lord Garmadon (Justin Theroux), who dreams of ruling the town for reasons that may exist but are never quite divulged. Enter the heroic Secret Ninja Force: six teenage heroes each with their own colour, fighting specialism, elemental force and witty identity. Think Power Rangers , only with fewer opposable thumbs.

Like its Lego predecessors, the opening act of The Lego Ninjago Movie is fun with a capital F: frantic, fizzing with energy, and furiously funny. It’s beautifully animated, too — if, like previous entries, a little over-caffeinated during the action sequences, bricks flying every which way at such a speed that it might induce motion sickness.

After the ‘Ultimate Weapon’ is used to summon a catastrophic (emphasis on the ‘cat’) enemy, our heroes embark on a mystical journey into the wilderness to track down the ‘Ultimate Ultimate Weapon’. The gag rate largely remains, but déjà vu sets in fast. Despite heroic voice work by Justin Theroux, Lord Garmadon is wildly similar to Will Ferrell’s Lord Business from the first film, and the entire story steps down a well-trodden path. Garmadon’s son is the Green Ninja (Dave Franco) in a none-too-subtle echo of the Skywalker family tree, while the daddy issues that dominate the latter half of the film will feel tired, even to younger viewers.

That signature tone — arch, knowing, sheened in puckish irony — sometimes struggles to connect, too. One character mocks the “needlessly cryptic metaphors” of enigmatic sensei Master Wu (voiced by Chan), but it’s not quite courageous enough to entirely subvert the tropes it pokes fun at, seemingly happy to follow a generic template in which characters learn obvious lessons about how the real power was inside them all along (a lesson Dorothy and the Tin Man learnt some eight decades earlier).

Still, it’s bright and breezy enough to keep most ages diverted for an hour-and-a-half, and those diminutive minifigures still manage to stand above most of their animated competition (though Pixar, on its good days, might have something to say about that). It’s just a shame that a series which promised so much is already showing signs of fatigue and repetition. The Lego Movie felt essential. The Lego Ninjago Movie , meanwhile, feels disposable.

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Den of Geek

The Lego Ninjago Movie Review

The Lego Ninjago Movie, starring Dave Franco, Justin Theroux, and Jackie Chan, is the franchise's first dud.

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The Lego Movie franchise had to stumble eventually, right?

While The Lego Ninjago Movie will no doubt entertain hardcore fans of either the Ninjago-themed Cartoon Network TV series or Lego’s Ninjago toy line, The Lego Ninjago Movie is a lazy addition to this standout franchise that often entertains but never engages.

There are plenty of self-aware laughs to be had in the film’s 100-minute runtime, but  The Lego Ninjago Movie  lacks the heart of either of its Lego Movie predecessors. By the time you leave the theater, you will no doubt have already moved on from this shallow tale of father-son bonding wrapped up in a culturally-appropriated aesthetic of feudal Japan.

Ninjago  follows the character of Lloyd Garmadon (Dave Franco), the 16-year-old son of Ninjago’s conquering villain Garmadon (Justin Theroux). Garmadon lives just off the coast of Ninjago City, in his very own volcano lair, where he attacks Lloyd’s hometown once a day. As you might imagine, being the son of a homicidal, four-armed supervillain does not make Lloyd popular with the other kids. He spends most of his time with his five friends: Kai (Michael Pena), Cole (Fred Armisen), Nya (Abbi Jacobson), Jay (Kumail Nanjiani), and Zane (Zach Woods). Together, Lloyd and his friends make up a band of masked teenage ninjas, trained by Lloyd’s uncle sensei Master Wu (Jackie Chan) to protect the city from Garmadon.

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It’s a fun premise, but one Ninjago doesn’t spend enough time setting up this Power Rangers -like team of heroes. This crew needed a more complete origin story. It’s like watching  The Return of the Jedi   without having seen the first two movies. Sure, it’s fun, but why do we care about this Luke Skywalker kid, his friend group, or his complicated family dynamics?

By the end of The Lego Ninjago Movie , I still can’t tell you which character has which color-power combination (red-fire, black-earth, gray-water, blue-lightning, and white-ice), let alone any personality characteristics. (Although Nanjiani’s Jay provides some of the film’s biggest laughs.) We cheer for Lloyd and his friends not because we want to, but because there’s nothing else to do with this movie.

Ninjago throws most of its energy into telling a paint-by-numbers father-son narrative, which might have been prudent if the whole thing didn’t play as flat as as the sides of smooth plastic blocks. This is a problem not only because this story has been told about a million times before, but because Ninjago never bothers to convince us that Garmadon deserves a redemption arc. This is a dude who gets up every morning and decides to wreak havoc, and not even because of some half-hearted villain origin story; he does it because it’s on brand.

Past that, Lloyd is the latest in a long line of lackluster movie Chosen Ones who becomes a hero not because he is particularly smart, brave, or kind, but because he is the golden-haired male with the familial connections. Lloyd’s alter ego is the “Green Ninja,” a vague descriptor that feels more like code for “Nepotism Ninja” than what the movie eventually tries to convince us it means. This is particularly frustrating in a franchise that cleverly picked apart the Chosen One narrative in its first film.

Perhaps the most glaring problem Ninjago has as a film is not in its plot, but in its purpose. The Lego Movie lampooned the Chosen One narrative in hilarious, clever, and heartfelt ways. The Lego Batman Movie took on the ubiquitous superhero narrative. The Lego Ninjago Movie should do the same for the rich ninja movie tradition. 

However, there is something unsettling about seeing a predominantly white creative team make a movie starring mostly white voice-actors about a popular art form that hails from another, non-white part of the world. There is a seeming lack of interest and understanding in the culture or even pop culture this movie ostensibly aims to explore.

The carefully-constructed cultural subversion and homage we get into the subjects of the first two Lego movies is missing here, and it leaves The Lego Ninjago Movie feeling frustratingly shallow.

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Kayti Burt | @kaytiburt

Kayti is a pop culture writer, editor, and full-time nerd who comes from a working class background. A member of the Television Critics Association, she specializes…

The Lego Ninjago Movie is perfectly adequate, assuming you know what Ninjago is

But the direction it signals for the Lego Movie franchise is worrying.

by Alissa Wilkinson

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The Lego Ninjago Movie is perfectly adequate on the level of cartoon-driven entertainment. That’s all it sets out to be. And so by that measure, it’s a rousing success. But by the measure of the movie franchise it serves as the third installment for, it’s missing some critical pieces.

Its predecessors in that franchise were hugely entertaining but also more than just fluff. The original Lego Movie was an unexpectedly joyous adventure-comedy that capitalized on the blocks’ ability to let kids’ creativity run wild. The Lego Batman Movie was competent both as comedy and as a coy satirical take on superhero movies more generally — slightly less clever, but still super fun.

This one has a lot of good jokes and puns, and it’s not unpleasant to watch. (The movie’s monster is a giant, non-talking cat, which is pretty funny for anyone who’s tried to play with Legos around a cat.) But when it comes to ideas, it has less ratting around upstairs than the previous two films.

Which is fine, if a bit disappointing. The Lego Ninjago Movie isn’t trying to launch or critique a franchise so much as extend an existing one. And while the Lego movies’ slide toward Saturday morning cartoon territory is disheartening, the franchise still packs in enough wry humor to make it much more fun than your average kids’ movie.

But if you’re not 10 years old, or don’t spend a lot of time in the proximity of 10-year-olds, your most burning question about The Lego Ninjago Movie may be less about whether the movie is successful and more about what a “ninjago” is. The movie itself isn’t all that illuminating on that point — or any point in particular — so here’s the context you need to pick up what Lego Ninjago is putting down.

What’s a ninjago?

“Ninjago,” a portmanteau of “ninja” and “Lego,” is not a thing. It’s a world. Ninjago is a fictional place invented as both a theme for Lego sets and a setting for the show Ninjago: Master of Spin , which began its run in 2011 and is hugely popular with the younger set.

Ninjago, as the lore would have it, was created by the First Spinjitzu Master, who used some very powerful weapons called the Four Elemental Weapons of Spinjitzu. The Master had two sons — Lord Garmadon and Sensei Wu — who were evil and good, respectively. Garmadon was eventually banished to an underworld while Wu protected the powerful weapons. But Garmadon came back, so Wu trained four young ninjas, who became the keepers of the weapons. Garmadon’s goal is to conquer Ninjago; Wu’s goal is to protect it.

That information would have been pretty helpful going into The Lego Ninjago Movie , though it does its best to fill all the details in very quickly so those who aren’t superfans can get the gist. By the time the movie starts, the four ninjas have grown to six: Cole ( Fred Armisen ) is the earth ninja, Jay ( Kumail Nanjiani ) is the lightning ninja, Kai ( Michael Peña ) is the fire ninja, Nya ( Abbi Jacobson ) is the water ninja, Zane ( Brent Miller ) is the ice ninja, and Lloyd ( Dave Franco ) is the “green” ninja, and no, he doesn’t really know what that means either.

Lloyd is also the son of Lord Garmadon ( Justin Theroux ), a fact that gives him no end of grief, since his dad keeps attacking the city with his skeleton army and the other parents at his school aren’t so keen on their kid playing with the son of the guy trying to wreck their homes and lives. Garmadon — who calls him “Luh-loyd” — has been an absentee father for the most part, so Lloyd lives with his mother and tries to keep her from finding about his secret identity as the Green Ninja.

That’s the basic setup, and it all unfurls in classic cartoon-movie style, with Lloyd and Lord Garmadon winding up, through a series of unexpected events, fighting on the same side and having various revelations about themselves, their histories, and their relationships.

The Lego Ninjago Movie puts the franchise on a dangerous slope

There’s some martial arts in here, some monsters (mostly the cat), some slapstick and joking around, and some adventuring, all of which is entirely serviceable for entertaining a room full of young Lego Ninjago fans who have enjoyed the show’s six seasons while not actively boring their indulgent parents.

Also present: lots and lots of product placement. The simultaneous rise of the show and the Lego sets makes this inescapable, of course. There’s also a Ninjago theme in the toy-to-video-game product Lego Dimensions, and a Lego Juniors version for the smallest fans.

In a sense, the Lego Movie franchise has always been blatant product placement, of course. It’s right there in the name. But compared with its predecessors, this one doesn’t have as much to recommend it to those who are there more for the comedy than for the credit card bills. It relies on references and jokes for its humor instead of going big and slyly poking fun at movies themselves.

And that could be a worrying sign of the future of the Lego movies, which have always been a bright spot of imagination in the confused and sometimes blatantly consumeristic Angry Birds / Trolls / Emoji Movie parade. Let’s hope they don’t succumb to the same fate.

The Lego Ninjago Movie opens in US theaters on September 22.

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The Lego Ninjago Movie (2017)

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‘the lego ninjago movie’: film review.

The toy-branded TV series jumps to the big screen in Warner Bros.' 'The Lego Ninjago Movie.'

By THR Staff

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The product of three credited directors, six credited screenwriters, five editors and one executive producer who helmed two of the most uninspired trilogy enders in recent memory (Brett Ratner , of X-Men: The Last Stand and Red Dragon ), The Lego Ninjago Movie is, finally, more or less the kind of advertainment observers expected from the first big-screen adventure featuring Lego toys. A perfectly adequate family film for kids who love watching things they’ve seen many times before (which is to say, most kids), it offers plenty of chuckles for their parents but nothing approaching the glee of that first Lego Movie .

In a live-action framing device, the picture opens like a Gremlins knockoff, with a young boy wandering into a mysterious Chinatown curio store. The shopkeeper, Jackie Chan , sees the kid’s beat-up Lego action figure and takes pity on him, transforming “Lloyd” into a ninja with some sleight of hand. He then pulls a carved-wood figurine out from a cabinet (this one a wizened martial-arts master) and starts spinning a yarn about “the story of Ninjago .”

Release date: Sep 22, 2017

Older viewers who still associate Legos with basic-shape bricks that can be used to build anything a child imagines may not know that Ninjago is a vast empire of branded kits, each designed to build a specific element of a world depicted in a TV series of the same name. Ninjago is, in other words, the kind of imagination-inhibiting toy that represented everything dumb and oppressive in 2014’s The Lego Movie . (And from which that year’s self-serving Beyond the Brick: A Lego Brickumentary suggested, dishonestly, the company was moving away.)

Ninjago is a strange island-city where elements of Chinese and Japanese pop culture combine to create an environment populated mostly by white people. (Lego humans tend to share a common, unidentifiable skin tone, but of the top-billed actors voicing these characters, only Chan comes from China or Japan.) Here, civilization faces constant threat from Lord Garmadon (Justin Theroux ), a villain who lives in a volcano and wreaks havoc periodically.

The aforementioned Lloyd ( Dave Franco , often charming in live action but generic here) is Garmadon’s estranged son and therefore a pariah in Ninjago . The only people who’ll have anything to do with him are the five friends who secretly form a superhero team with him: They’re Power Ranger-like warriors who do battle with Garmadon in giant robo-mech suits. What they have to do with ninjas is anyone’s guess, and — beyond the fact that one is a girl and one is a robot — the script doesn’t bother giving any of them (aside from Lloyd) much of a personality.

The ninjas’ spiritual leader is Master Wu (Chan), whose secret stash of gear includes one Ultimate Weapon. After the latest clash between Garmadon and the ninjas fails to destroy the bad guy (battle scenes here are epic but so busy in their design they become a blur), Lloyd decides to steal this mysterious weapon and use it against dear old Dad.

Like The Lego Movie ‘s Kragle , the Ultimate Weapon turns out to be a common household object, a key-chain laser pointer. How this device unleashes its destructive power is surprising and belly laugh-worthy, which of course means it is spoiled by the film’s trailers. Suffice it to say that Lloyd unwittingly causes more harm to Ninjago than his father ever did. Now he and his buddies must go on a dangerous quest to find the Ultimate Ultimate Weapon.

Garmadon decides to help them, for reasons that will likely be lost on viewers but make perfect sense to any hack screenwriters in the audience: Father and son must, of course, be forced to bond during their travails and reconcile in the end.

Readers detecting a vaguely Skywalkerian theme will observe many Star Wars references here, along with plenty of borrowings from other fantasy adventures. Though these lack the clever, self-aware quality of the external references in The Lego Movie , they’re inoffensive and generally effective — up until the picture’s “the power is inside of you” climax, at which point they may prompt some eye-rolling. The inevitable heart-to-heart between the two Garmadons , Lloyd and Lord, is more sappy than satisfying — despite the novelty of its setting, which may have some young kids rolling in the aisles.

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Production companies: Lin Pictures, Lord Miller, Vertigo Entertainment Distributor: Warner Bros. Voice cast: Jackie Chan, Dave Franco, Justin Theroux , Fred Armisen , Kumail Nanjiani , Michael Pena, Abbi Jacobson, Zach Woods, Olivia Munn Directors: Charlie Bean, Paul Fisher, Bob Logan Screenwriters: Bob Logan, Paul Fisher, William Wheeler, Tom Wheeler, Jared Stern, John Whittington Producers: Dan Lin, Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, Chris McKay, Maryann Garger , Roy Lee Executive producers: Jill Wilfert , Keith Malone, Simon Lucas, Chris Leahy, Seth Grahame-Smith, Zareh Nalbandian , Brett Ratner Production designers: Kim Taylor, Simon Whiteley Editors: Julie Rogers, Garret Elkins, Ryan Folsey , John Venzon , David Burrows Composer: Mark Mothersbaugh Casting director: Mary Hidalgo

Rated PG, 101 minutes

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Review: The LEGO Ninjago Movie

I’ve been on holiday over the last 3 weeks and I managed to catch The LEGO Ninjago Movie in the cinema. Ever since my kid came along, it’s been an absolute challenge getting away for 2 hours to watch movies (you parents know what I’m talking about) so I had to sneak out with a friend after the missus and baby fell asleep to catch a midnight screening.

As the movie’s been out for about one and a half weeks now, I’ll start off by saying that this review will absolutely contain major spoilers so if you haven’t seen the LEGO Ninjago Movie yet and want to remain unspoiled, please stop reading now.

I will also preface this review with my expectations of the movie, to give you a better understanding of my frame of mind walking into the cinema. I was really looking forward to The LEGO Ninjago Movie. From the get-go, the premise of the movie was really promising.

I like the Ninjago theme and think that it’s rather underrated amongst adult LEGO fans.

I am a big fan of the cast – the comedic pedigree of Jackie Chan, Dave Franco, Michael Pena, Kumail Nanjiani, Zach Woods and Fred Armisen, not to mention Constance Wu and Randall Park (from Fresh Off the Boat) seemed like an awesome ensemble of some of the best current-day comedians in Hollywood.

I am a big fan of HBO’s Silicon Valley so I was psyched to be hearing more of Zach Woods and Kumail Nanjiani.

I was also coming off of the slightly disappointing affair of The LEGO Batman Movi e. Don’t get me wrong, I liked the movie but it didn’t quite soar to the same heights as the first LEGO Movie which was such a refreshing and exceptional experience at the time, loved by both fans and critics alike.

With The LEGO Batman Movie, I really enjoyed the campy and comprehensive take on Batman, and all the DC in-jokes thrown in but I felt that it was a little too self-indulgent and one-dimensional. It was hilarious, don’t get me wrong, but it lacked a bit of that zaniness and creativity that The LEGO Movie was exceedingly generous with.

The plot of The LEGO Ninjago Movie simultaneously treads familiar ground while throwing in a few twists to keep it fresh. The story revolves around Lloyd (pronounced Luh-Loyd) the Green Ninja and his struggles being loved by the inhabitants of Ninjago City as the bad-ass Green Ninja, while being vilified for being the son of Garmadon.

Ninjago City is a bustling metropolis that’s both futuristic and traditional at the same time, with the obvious Oriental/Japanese influence that you’d expect from the Ninjago theme. The City is constantly under threat from Lord Garmadon who lives just a stone’s throw away from the city in a Volcano in the middle of the sea and his army of deep sea-themed henchmen and shark machinations.

We also explore Lloyd’s sordid relationship with his absent father (Lord Garmadon) and his struggles growing up without a father figure in his life. Daddy issues abound in the movie and got a little old after awhile.

It’s a bit of a shame that the movie really revolves around Lloyd and Garmadon, which unfortunately relegates the rest of the cast into the background , even Sensei Wu . It almost feels like the rest of the cast’s talent is wasted, outside of say Zane and his robotic quips or a few choice lines from Jay.

Kai is almost silent throughout and it just felt like there was a ton of wasted potential for the “squad” and their chemistry to truly shine.

In terms of what the movie does really well, I was blown away by the animation and the rich tapestry of world-building that went into bringing Ninjago to life. The designers and animators have done an exceptional job fleshing out the universe. Ninjago City and its denizens feel organic and are bursting with life and character.

The movie moves at a pretty fast pace which makes it a little hard keeping track of everything that goes on, but I loved all the little peeks at Ninjago City life as the inhabitants react in disgust to Lloyd, or panicking over Garmadon’s latest takeover attempt of the City. In many ways, the Ninjago universe mirrors the colourful cast and universe of The LEGO Movie, just with a ton of Japanese flavour sprinkled on it.

The movie really hits its stride in the first and second acts , where the action is fast and unrelenting. My absolute favourite parts of the movie were the Ninjas hopping into action, saving the City from Garmadon and his henchmen. The mechs are stunning, a lot of fun and felt like a love letter to Voltron, Power Rangers and Gundam. 

The mech designs are brilliant and seeing them go to town with their weaponry amidst the crumbling bricks of Ninjago City is simply breathless – the set pieces and battle cinematography is second to none and is one of the few moments in the film where we can see the Ninjas coordinating with one another to take down a common foe.

To say that it’s a lot of fun is an understatement. These city fight scenes against Garmadon’s forces are among one of the most fun and exhilarating moments in any LEGO Movie.

Unfortunately, I didn’t find the movie very funny. The jokes seemed to fall flat and it seemed like most of the best jokes were spoiled in the trailers.

Yeah, I could’ve avoided most of the trailers but I felt like it was a really bad decision to spoil “Meowthra” the real life cat that terrorises Ninjago City in both the trailers and posters. If they had kept this reveal for the movie, I think it would’ve been hilarious.

Also, I would’ve liked a bit more physical Jackie Chan humour, especially with the kung fu choreography . The fights that were in the movie were great and showed a lot of promise, but I really wanted a lot more. I think physical humour and gags were severely underused in the movie, as great physical humour has the potential to transcend not just language but age barriers as well.

Sadly, the movie loses a lot of steam as it approaches the third act , where the progression of the plot and characters suddenly accelerate into a jumbled and incoherent mess. This is where Lloyd and Garmadon start teaming up, and outside of some poignant/funny moments like Garmadon teaching Lloyd how to throw stuff, the movie seems to rush itself to the finish line in a very haphazard fashion.

It doesn’t help that the emotional climax happens in the third act, but I felt that it wasn’t properly built up properly throughout the first two acts.

The movie sends out some strong messages about absentee fathers, but because the plot progresses too rapidly, it doesn’t give you enough space to relate or to form a bond with the characters that it doesn’t quite feel like there’s a lot at stake with Lloyd and Garmadon’s relationship.

And this is ultimately where the movie falls short for me. While it is an absolute cinematic spectacle with some amazing set pieces, animation and art direction, the movie lacks the heart that was unashamedly the essence of The LEGO Movie , and to a weaker extent, The LEGO Batman Movie.

I can forgive the movie’s slightly underwhelming sense of humour and credit that to it being targeted at younger kids, but that’s no excuse for a movie to feel so empty.

Pixar is considered a legendary animated feature film production house not because of their creativity, art style, or technology but because their most successful movies like Up, Toy Story and Wall-E rightfully place an emotional connection at the forefront of the movies and build around it.

The LEGO Movie had plenty of heart, and you couldn’t help but relate with all the protagonists, Wyldstyle, Emmet and President Business because they were written well and came across as three dimensional characters who developed throughout the movie.

I didn’t quite get that from Lloyd and Garmadon’s dynamic. I thought Lloyd, voiced by Dave Franco was brilliant, but Garmadon’s writing and voice acting left a lot to be desired . He just felt like an underdeveloped character and outside of his backstory with Lady Iron Dragon/Misako, it didn’t feel like he grew much throughout the movie.

Also while we’re at Garmadon, what is with the dark undertones of all three LEGO Movies and shitty dads/father figures? Surely there are other stories that can be told that don’t revolve around estranged fathers?

I think The LEGO Ninjago Movie exhibited a ton of promise, but was let down by weak writing. Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed myself in the cinema, but I felt like The LEGO Ninjago Movie could’ve done much more with all the tools they had at their disposal.

It sadly doesn’t reach the heights of The LEGO Movie but like The LEGO Batman Movie, is still worth a trip to the cinemas to watch it. It’s a really enjoyable romp and showcases some really epic action scenes and if you’re into mecha this movie will hit all the right notes for you. Just don’t expect a fully satisfying cinematic experience like The LEGO Movie delivered.

There were a few other smaller gripes that I had, such as the lack of Spinjitzu which was really surprising as its such a core component of the Ninjago theme and TV shows but they didn’t ultimately detract from my overall enjoyment of the movie.

One of the things the movie does well is that it remains approachable and easy enough for anyone to get into. You don’t need to know anything about Ninjago or any backstory of the TV show or sets to get into the movie, which I thought was a really smart thing to ensure that the movie remains accessible.

Is it a perfect movie? No, but it makes for a good family popcorn flick for those that love LEGO. Could it have been improved? Most definitely! Rating: 3/5

So yeah, that’s my thoughts on The LEGO Ninjago Movie. I’d love to hear what you thought of the movie in the comments section! Did you love it or hate it? What were your favourite parts?

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• DVD & Streaming

The LEGO Ninjago Movie

• Action/Adventure , Animation , Comedy , Kids

Content Caution

In Theaters

• September 22, 2017
• Voices of Jackie Chan as Master Wu/Mr. Liu; Dave Franco as Lloyd; Justin Theroux as Garmadon; Olivia Munn as Koko; Fred Armisen as Cole; Kumail Nanjiani as Jay; Zach Woods as Zane; Michael Peña as Kai; Abbi Jacobso as Nya

Home Release Date

• December 19, 2017
• Charlie Bean, Bob Logan, Paul Fisher

Distributor

• Warner Bros.

Movie Review

Lloyd Garmadon leads a double life.

On the one hand he’s just an average teenage misfit—a kid who’s well loved by his mom but not much by anyone else. I mean, hey, high school is tough enough, you know? A pretty judgy place if you ask Lloyd.

On top of that, Lloyd also has another burden to bear: It just so happens that Lloyd’s absentee dad is none other than the evil warlord Garmadon.

Yeah, that evil warlord Garmadon: the totally evil do-badder who regularly tries to take over or destroy their home of Ninjago City. This four-armed, demonic-looking dude is so foully bad that he lives inside a volcano, fer crying out loud!

Now, that’s some pretty negative parental guidance right there.

Of course, his dad’s rep only heaps more coals on Lloyd’s head. Just about all the kids at school hate him. Some guy even made up an obnoxious song called “Boo Lloyd” just to rub it in. And it became a hit on the radio.

Poor Lloyd.

But it’s not all bad news. Which brings us back to Lloyd’s double life.

You see, he and his fellow outcast friends also happen to secretly be … ninja warriors. Led by the mysterious Master Wu—a wisecracking wily wise man of the far We …, er, East —these six teens wear colorful outfits, pilot decked-out battle mechs and wield magical elemental powers.

There’s Kai the red fire ninja; Cole the black earth ninja; Nya the grey water ninja; Jay the blue lightning ninja; Zane the white ice ninja; and Lloyd the green, uh, green ninja. (Maybe it’s an environmental thing, Lloyd’s not sure.)

Lloyd and his masked pals are as beloved in their ninja roles as they are ostracized as regular teens. They’re also the only force that has a chance of beating Garmadon and his baddies. And so they fight on in secret.

The problem is, even this “famous” side of Lloyd’s life actually isn’t so great. Every time they face off with his warlord foe of a father, Lloyd realizes just how much he’s missed in his life because of that oblivious evil guy. He’s never had a dad to look up to. He’s never had a father to teach him important father-son stuff. He’s only had an enemy who doesn’t seem to care in the least that he has a son out in the world somewhere.

Then one day during a typical battle with Garmadon and his wicked army, something goes wrong. Thinking that he might put an end to his dad’s evil forces once and for all, Lloyd accidentally unleashes a terrible monster on the city.

Now the green ninja is in something of a pickle. (And that’s not a green ninja power.)

To save everyone, Lloyd must embark upon a perilous, life-threatening quest. But worse, he might need to resort to something even more horrible. Something unthinkable.

He might have to … ask his father for help.

Positive Elements

“Nobody’s parents are perfect,” one of Lloyd’s friends says to make him feel better. Another pal agrees: “I mean, my mom is weird and collects seashells. Your dad levels cities and attacks innocent people. So, they’ve all got their quirks.” That interaction sets the stage for this kid pic’s exploration of familial bonds and Lloyd’s longing for a deeper father-son connection. As the story unfolds, we witness the transforming power of a loving relationship as well as the difference forgiveness and communication can make in a broken one.

The LEGO Ninjago Movie also suggests that feeling like an outcast isn’t a permanent season of life. Sometimes difficult situations can change if you alter your perspective and work toward the changes you’d like to see, the film tells us. Lloyd, for his part, eventually discovers his ability to be a leader thanks to Master Wu’s prompting.

[ Spoiler Warning ] Lloyd’s relationship with his dad shifts substantially and the teen expresses his love for both of his parents. We see the sacrificial choices that Lloyd’s mom, Koko, has made for him. “Your mom was the best,” a humbled Garmadon eventually admits. “She wanted the best of me and only wanted the best for you. I never should have left.” The baddie softens as he remembers his love for Koko and the choices he should have made, but didn’t. Later, Garmadon is surprised at how much he enjoys doing the kinds of father-son things Lloyd’s often longed for.

Spiritual Elements

Master Wu speaks to his young charges in vague spiritual terms about the energy that flows through all things and the ninja teens’ innate ability to tap into the elemental powers within them. Accordingly, each one wields his or her abilities in element-specific ways.

Sexual Content

Some blocky LEGO characters on the beach wear swimsuits and bikinis. Garmadon demonstrates a trick he can do with his two sets of arms, turning his back and pretending to be making out with two people. A secondary character, the Fuchsia Ninja, acts a bit effeminately. During a fight with Master Wu, Garmadon rips off his opponent’s pants and laughs at the man’s “tightie whities.”

Violent Content

This is a “ninja” movie, so there is plenty of thumping hand-to-hand combat with kicks, punches and club blows. Larger conflicts feature robot-like battle mechs and involve plastic missiles and explosives that send LEGO blocks and characters flying. Special weapons shoot full-size sharks and other plastic aquatic animals. (Really.)

When he’s upset, Garmadon launches his displeasing generals from the top of his volcano base like so many flaming missiles. Later we see a large group of them, with their hair and outfits still smoldering with glowing embers. LEGO skeletons are scattered around a dark and shadowy part of this plastic world, too.

A giant, live-action cat “monster” knocks over large buildings and smashes the ninja’s mechs. It even swallows Garmadon whole at one point. But, of course, all of the above is bloodless LEGO block violence that’s played out in humorous ways.

Crude or Profane Language

Garmadon sends a letter full of silly name-calling, including the line, “You’re a stupid dummy with a big butt and you smell like a butt.” That’s a concentrated representation of the toilet-tinged verbal volleys viewers encounter throughout this pic—along with a few uses of “oh my gosh” and “what the heck.”

Garmadon spits out a veiled wink at profanity when he huffs, “He and I are gonna have words. And you can bet some of those words are gonna have four letters.”

Drug and Alcohol Content

Garmadon throws a pool party for his evil hordes, and some partiers sip on paper umbrella-adorned mixed drinks.

Other Negative Elements

Early on, Garmadon is oblivious to the pain his actions have caused. “How could I have ruined your life?” he asks his emotionally wounded son. “I wasn’t even there.”

After a frightening interaction, Garmadon quips, “I might need a change of armor.”

Ninjas, giant battle mechs, Jackie Chan and LEGOs. Oh my.

The third entry in the LEGO movie franchise definitely takes a different tack than the first two super hero-focused flicks . But this latest LEGO tale still feels, uh, apiece with the plastic-block cinematic universe we’ve come to know so well.

It’s packed with quick irreverent quips and break-everything-into-pieces goofy action. And the whole thing plays out in a grand, ridiculous scale. We’ve got villains that live inside an active volcano, and who attack cities with shark-launching weapons. We’ve got a live-action tabby that appears as a skyscraper-tumbling monstrosity.

That said, I couldn’t help but think that this kid flick’s spoofing of ’80s-style martial arts movies felt a tad slow and predictable at first. (And may be a bit too “ Buy this cool kit at your local retailer!” merchandise – centered as well.) And even though the pic frowns at bullying, judgmental types, that doesn’t keep it from indulging in quite a bit of “stupid-dummy-smelly-butt” name-calling nonetheless.

That said, once we turn the corner and reach the heart of this pic, it’s all snap-together polypropylene goodness. Familial love prevails, misunderstood kids are welcomed with open arms, and a baddie begins to discover how love and forgiveness can make major changes in a person’s life.

It all kinda clicks, in a fun-and-happy LEGO way.

After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.

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Review: ‘The Lego Ninjago Movie’ Sticks to the Instruction Manual

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By A.O. Scott

• Sept. 20, 2017

“When are the Wegos coming on?” the young boy sitting next to me asked his father. His impatience was reasonable enough. Here we were, five minutes into “The Lego Ninjago Movie,” gazing at a live-action prologue with Jackie Chan, a kid and a cat in a store full of exotic knickknacks.

Soon enough, the Wegos awwived, and the latest installment in a nearly foolproof franchise was underway, a fast-moving mélange of brazen corporate promotion, winking pop-culture cleverness and earnest lesson-learning. I realize that makes this movie sound indistinguishable from nearly every other piece of family-targeted animated big-screen entertainment out there, and I’m sorry to report that the Lego movie enterprise has lapsed into intentional mediocrity.

This is especially disappointing given the conceptual wit, visual flair and bonkers imagination of “The Lego Movie” and the sweet silliness of “The Lego Batman Movie.” “The Lego Ninjago Movie,” directed by Charlie Bean, Paul Fisher and Bob Logan from a script with an army of credited authors, attaches itself to some of the tropes and images of Asian action cinema with sloppy affection. Mr. Chan, who voices a wise and venerable teacher in addition to playing the wise and venerable shopkeeper, doesn’t really belong to the ninja genre. But neither do the young fighters who protect the city of Ninjago from an evil four-armed warlord named Garmadon, voiced by Justin Theroux. They prefer big, noisy machines to stealth, guile and swordsmanship.

Garmadon, who wants to be a mayor, is a megalomaniac whose regular assaults on peace and normalcy are breathlessly covered by the news media and whose favorite pastime is firing his underlings. His estranged teenage son, Lloyd (Dave Franco), is ostracized and mocked for being the child of such a monster. But Lloyd, whose alter ego is the Green Ninja, works behind the scenes to check his father’s worst tendencies. Does every movie have to be a political allegory now? Can’t we just have fun?

Not as much as we’d like to. The Lego figures are rendered with playful rigor; their limited movements and expressions generate some amusing sight gags. But the physical world they inhabit is more of a generic digital-cartoon space than a snapped-together environment. And the themes they explore are tired, cynical, sub-Disney bromides about family reconciliation and self-discovery.

A dollop of mawkish sentiment is to be expected in this kind of movie. “The Lego Ninjago Movie” applies it in gluey globs, freezing the action so that Lloyd and Garmadon can work out their issues. For whose benefit? Children are unlikely to be captivated by this unconvincing melodrama of abandonment and reconciliation, and adults will be moved by it only because we’re hopeless crybabies.

We’re also, at least in the eyes of the committee that issued this strategy memo disguised as a movie, eager to hear the voices of cool people we watch on television. Abbi Jacobson of “Broad City,” Fred Armisen of “Portlandia” and Kumail Nanjiani of “Silicon Valley” (and also “The Big Sick”) are on sidekick duty here, to no memorable effect. Ms. Jacobson’s character, the only girl in the six-ninja squad, barely rises to the level of tokenism.

“She’s a girl and a ninja! Can she have it all?” a voice-over asks sardonically, trying to make a self-conscious joke at the expense of the movie’s own imaginative limitations. “You fellas need to inform yourselves on where we’re at culturally,” the lady ninja retorts. It’s a good line, but also one that the writers and directors — fellas to a man — might have taken a bit more to heart. Or maybe they did, and this is just where we’re at culturally.

The Lego Ninjago Movie Rated PG. Plastic figurines roughhousing and saying mildly naughty things. Running time: 1 hour 41 minutes.

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Gimli broke one of lord of the rings' very first rules, furiosa rotten tomatoes audience score breaks major mad max franchise record, the lego ninjago movie  is an underwhelming series installment hamstrung by a thin script and weak characters that don't leave much of an impact..

The city of Ninjago is frequently attacked by the villainous Garmadon (Justin Theroux), to the point where his constant strikes have become a regular part of everyday life. This makes things rather difficult for Garmadon's teenage son Lloyd (Dave Franco), who is a social outcast because of his familial connection to Ninjago's would-be conquerer. Harboring deep resentment for his absentee father, Lloyd secretly leads a Ninja Force consisting of his school friends Kai (Michael Peña), Zane (Zach Woods), Jay (Kumail Nanjiani), Nya (Abbi Jackson), and Cole (Fred Armisen) that fights back against Garmadon and regularly saves the citizens of Ninjago. The group is under the tutelage of Lloyd's uncle, Master Wu (Jackie Chan), who dispels wisdom to help his students realize their full potential.

During one of their many altercations, Lloyd's personal feelings towards Garmadon causes him to act irrationally, and as a result, Ninjago faces an even greater threat that must be stopped as soon as possible. With the only remedy to the problem located on the opposite side of the island, the Secret Ninja Force have no choice but to embark on an epic quest, where they will hopefully learn some important lessons about themselves along the way.

Following the blockbuster success of Phil Lord and Chris Miller's  The LEGO Movie in 2014, Warner Bros. began to develop a full cinematic universe based on the property.  The LEGO Ninjago Movie is the second spinoff in the franchise, after  The LEGO Batman Movie was released earlier this year. In a short period of time, the  LEGO films have earned a reputation for being heartfelt pieces of entertainment that transcend their standing as commercials for toys, and the hope was  Ninjago could provide a fun riff on martial arts movies with  LEGO 's trademark sense of humor. Unfortunately, that isn't the case.  The LEGO Ninjago Movie is an underwhelming series installment hamstrung by a thin script and weak characters that don't leave much of an impact.

Whereas previous  LEGO entries were able to weave fascinating bits of subtext and heavy themes into family films,  Ninjago seems content with a very bare-bones narrative that doesn't do much digging below the surface. The story is quite basic and almost painfully generic at times, moving along a predictable trajectory that rarely (if ever) surprises the audience with a deeper meaning. There's definitely a solid foundation here for a quality movie, but none of the concepts feel fully-realized and developed. This may have something to do with the fact there are six credited writers on the screenplay, making  Ninjago a byproduct of having too many cooks in the kitchen, all with their own ideas they want to incorporate.

The main crux of the story is the dynamic between Garmadon and Lloyd, which is hardly the most compelling. As the film's big bad, the former is woefully underwritten as a caricature of an evil dark lord, lacking any kind of meaningful motivation beyond wishing to take over the world for no discernible reason. Theroux does have a fun time hamming it up as the antagonist, but there isn't much for him to do. Likewise, Franco's Lloyd is your run-of-the-mill troubled teenager trying to find his place in the world. The script barely takes the time to flesh its main hero out, toying with some interesting angles (like making Lloyd's Green Ninja alter ego incredibly popular), but never really runs with any of them in the long haul. The weak handling of the two leads makes their respective arcs feel unearned, as  Ninjago operates on autopilot and goes through the motions.

Lloyd and Garmadon get the meatiest roles by virtue of their screen time, and the supporting cast fares even worse. The rest of Lloyd's Secret Ninja Force hardly register as individuals, being reduced to recite clichéd dialogue and very obvious jokes about their respective elements (see: "H2-oh yeah!"). In a way, they make  Ninjago feel like the cynical cash grab many feared the original  LEGO Movie would be when it was first announced, as the action sequences are mere showcases for cool-looking mech suit sets and little else. Instead of feeling like a team of friends with an inseparable bond, the main ninjas are just there simply to round the cast out. Chan is somewhat entertaining as Master Wu, but instead of being a clever deconstruction of the actor's filmography, the character is a standard "wise teacher" trope with little else to offer.

One thing directors Charlie Bean, Paul Fisher, and Bob Logan have going for them is that  Ninjago will play well for its target demographic of kids with its playful and light-hearted tone. Youngsters in attendance should enjoy the numerous gags and visuals, and the story does have some morals (however thin) sprinkled throughout so they take something away from the experience. That said, this is the first  LEGO film that was crafted more for children, meaning most of  Ninjago could be a slog for adults hoping for something a little richer in substance. Much of the comedy is geared for the juice box crowd, which is disappointing after the other  LEGO movies found a nice balance to appeal to viewers of all ages.

In the end,  Ninjago is easily the weakest of the three  LEGO films released to date, and is a sign that perhaps WB may have overestimated what they had from a creative perspective when they quickly green lit a slate of projects. It's difficult to catch lightning in a bottle again, and much of the freshness that made the franchise initially standout is gone here. What could have been a subversive and smart parody of martial arts cinema ended up being a derivative offering with average execution that couldn't reach the heights of its predecessors. Hopefully,  The LEGO Movie Sequel marks a return to form, or the studio might have to look elsewhere for ideas.

NEXT:  Where Do You Recognize The Voice Cast of LEGO Ninjago From?

The LEGO Ninjago Movie is now playing in U.S. theaters. It runs 101 minutes and is rated PG for some mild action and rude humor.

Let us know what you thought of the film in the comments!

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The Lego Ninjago Movie Videogame : The Kotaku Review

The Lego Ninjago Movie Videogame is short and a little rough, but a dynamic new combat system and a couple surprising tweaks to aging mechanics make it one of the most exciting new Lego games in years.

The eight story chapters in the game focus on rehashing the plot of The Lego Ninjago Movie . Green ninja Lloyd and his ninja companions are the defenders of Ninjago City, a bright and garish Tokyo-esque metropolis located on an ancient island. The city is terrorized by the evil Lord Garmadon—Lloyd’s dad—and his army of aquatic-themed mechs and thugs. Eager to embrace his destiny and defeat his father once and for all, Lloyd screws up and puts all of Ninjago Island at risk. Only a spiritual journey to the heart of the island can help Lloyd come to terms with his parentage, gain his Spinjitsu power and save the day.

I didn’t expect much from The Lego Ninjago Movie Videogame . Announced just three months ago with a date coinciding with the release of the movie, all signs pointed to a quick and dirty cash-in. It wouldn’t be bad—long-time Lego game studio TT Games never phones anything in—but it wouldn’t be anything special, either.

My preconceptions were shattered within the first few minutes of the game’s opening combat tutorial. With moves like the Rushing Boar charge attack, the ground-pounding Swooping Hawk and the Floating Butterfly, which is pretty much Sonic the Hedgehog’s homing attack, this isn’t the simplistic minifigure combat I am used to. This is so much better.

It’s less floaty flailing and more finesse. Spamming a single attack won’t do. Enemies quickly get wise and begin blocking, forcing players to mix things up. Accompanying the bold new combat is a combo system that rewards players with more studs (Lego’s traditional in-game currency) the longer they keep the hits coming. It’s a fighting system that encourages players to have fun with it.

And it is a whole lot of fun. Up until now, combat in TT Games’ Lego titles has been little more than an obstacle, something to keep players from getting from point A to point B—beat up five orcs or Stormtroopers or pirates or whatever to advance to the next area. In The Lego Ninjago Movie Videogame , I actively seek out combat, both for the thrill and for the studs.

Collecting studs has always been a major part of TT Games’ Lego series. As players progress through a level they collect silver, gold, blue and purple studs by defeating enemies, smashing Lego objects or simply picking them up off of the ground. Each level has a stud goal to achieve, and reaching that goal is one of the series’ primary motivations. Collecting studs is also incredibly distracting. It’s hard to focus on what Luke Skywalker, Captain Jack Sparrow or Frodo Baggins is doing story-wise with that stud meter hanging over one’s head.

Some players can breeze through a Lego game level without worrying about studs, going back to collect them later in free play. I am not one of those players, so I really appreciate what The Lego Ninjago Movie Videogame has done with stud collecting. For the first time since 2005's Lego: Star Wars , there is no per-level stud collecting requirement. It’s gone. Kaput. Good riddance.

Instead of a per-level stud meter, there’s a multi-leveled meter that follows the player throughout the game. Each time the player fills the meter completely, they gain a stud-collecting rank, earning a gold brick and some parts for the game’s custom character creator.

What a massive difference this simple change makes. Instead of being penalized for missing a goal, players are rewarded for achieving milestones. Finally I can enjoy the story in a Lego game without having those shiny little bastards constantly gnawing at the back of my mind.

Even better, studs are no longer required to unlock new characters. In previous Lego games players would discover or be rewarded with new characters upon completing goals. The characters would be added to their roster, but players had to pay studs in order to fully unlock them for play. It was an extra added step that made absolutely no sense. In The Lego Ninjago Movie Videogame , new characters discovered or rewarded are immediately playable. Excellent.

These big changes to the Lego game formula layer nicely on top of gameplay elements introduced in more recent games. From Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens we get multi-builds, piles of bouncing Lego bricks that can be directed to different locations, offering multiple solutions to some of the game’s puzzles.

From Lego Dimensions we get multiplayer battle arenas, where up to four players can compete in a series of competitive games involving collecting artifacts or capturing flags. The game also features a series of dojos, special arenas where players battle waves of enemies in order to score studs and special characters.

It’s filler, but it’s good filler. It also gives the game a chance to explore much more of the Ninjago line’s seven year history than is covered in the under two-hour theatrical release it’s based on.

Though lighthearted and rife with humor, the story is the weakest part of The Lego Ninjago Movie Videogame . As with many movie-centric Lego games, large chunks of plot are left out and characters disappear and then reappear with little explanation. The whole affair lasted all of three hours, and it did not end well at all. “Oh, I guess that’s it” were my exact words.

The real fun comes after the story’s over. Rather than being self-contained levels tied to a central hub, each of The Lego Ninjago Movie Videogame ’s levels takes place in its own open free-roaming map. Once a chapter is complete the players is free to roam these massive areas, using all of their characters’ special skills and Spinjitsu powers to scour every inch for new friends and secrets.

It’s a grand treasure hunt that spans the entire island, from the Ninjago City Docks to the City of Fired Generals, a settlement built by the discarded generals fired (into a volcano) by Lord Garmadon. Each contains a battle arena to compete in, a dojo to challenge, hidden characters and gold bricks and multiple areas that can only be unlocked once a requisite number of gold bricks are discovered.

The only caveat here is that the exploration might not last long. I’ve been playing off and on since Friday afternoon, and I’ve already got more than 70 percent completion. Were I not writing this review, I might be done by now. It doesn’t help that the game includes an easily-acquired treasure radar. I mean, it does help, but I sure am speeding through now.

Reaching 100 percent completion on this one will be bittersweet, as I’ve really enjoyed my time with The Lego Ninjago Movie Videogam e, certainly much more than I’ve enjoyed typing out the name. It’s an unexpected treat of a game, one that bodes well for the future of the Lego video game series. A rapid-release movie tie-in is a really strange place for innovation, yet here it is.

Maybe if I pace myself can make that final 28 percent last until Lego Marvel Super Heroes 2 arrives on November 14.

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The Lego Ninjago Movie Videogame Review

The lego ninjago movie videogame.

An enjoyable yet flawed adventure

• Fun yet accessible combat system
• Plenty of collectibles to find
• Makes some neat changes to the Lego formula
• Great co-op experience for young gamers
• Performance and audio issues are hard to ignore
• Jumbled and messy story
• Puzzle design grows repetitive very quickly

Key Specifications

• Review Price: £39.99
• Release Date: October 6
• Platforms: PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PC
• Genre: Action
• Developer: TT Fusion

Available on October 6 for PS4 (version tested), Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and PC

The formula first introduced with Lego Star Wars way back in 2005 has remarkably stood the test of time. It has constantly refined itself with new licences and innovations that keep it fresh, fun and perfectly in sync with its target audience. While it can grow repetitive, Traveller’s Tales always manage to craft a cohesive world that is both fun to explore and tear apart as little plastic toys capable of immense creativity. Lego Ninjago continues that trend, even if a few obvious cracks are beginning to show.

Pre-order The Lego Ninjago Movie Videogame from Amazon UK

Based on the recent film of the same name, Lego Ninjago brilliantly captures the atmosphere and humour of its counterpart. It also follows the narrative of the film so closely it almost became a detriment to my enjoyment. The solo campaign is a disjointed re-telling of the tale told through clumsy cutscenes and excerpts from the film. Many of these are plagued with obnoxious audio and performance issues. The opening level even crashed on me, leading me to feel concerned about progressing at all.

Fortunately, these problems only surfaced during gameplay in the form of absurdly noticeable framerate drops. Emerging primarily in large city environments, it became difficult to adjust my character without performance dipping into single digits. It’s laughably distracting, especially when so many independent objects are flying across the screen at any given moment. After developing so many titles of this ilk, it feels like Traveller’s Tales should have nailed things in the performance department by now.

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Performance problems aside, Lego Ninjago is a reasonably good time, making some clever innovations upon a formula we’ve grown so accustomed to. The usual mixture of stud collecting, combat and exploration remain untouched, although the former two elements have been expanded in some subtly excellent ways.

Combat in Lego Ninjago feels like a dumbed-down of Rocksteady’s Arkham titles, and this is no bad thing. With access to a few select combo variations, pulling off epic acrobatic maneuvers can be done with the touch of a few buttons, making me feel like an utter badass without trawling through daunting move lists.

While relatively shallow in terms of depth, your combat repertoire can be expanded by purchasing upgrades from a skill tree. Obtained by using ‘ Ninjanuity Tokens’ these abilities are capable of plenty of cool things. Whether it’s increasing your overall damage or causing enemies to erupt in a fountain of studs upon death, each of them feels genuinely helpful when it comes to chasing the golden goal of 100% completion. Watching all of my weapons transform into golden objects of destruction was awesome, even if they were only used to slice up plastic toys.

Ninjago’s combat is given ample room to shine in a series of Dojos. These are wave-based combat arenas that have you facing off against a variety of different enemies. The objective here is to gain the highest possible score, whether through picking up studs or executing a perfect series of combos. These excursions are hugely entertaining, although I wish they appeared more frequently across the open world.

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Ninjago’s open world is a strange one, segmented into several different areas that story missions also take place in. Upon leaving or entering a new location you’ll be met with an irritatingly long loading screen. Luckily, once loaded, the majority of areas are positively massive. I found it hard to ignore every little nook and cranny of each map, knowing they were absolutely stuffed with potential collectibles. It’s what the LEGO titles do best, drawing you into a legofied universe of beloved properties while simultaneously twisting them into fast-paced collectathons.

Most of my time in Ninjago was spent as charismatic ninjas as they made wonderfully terrible puns while pouncing across rooftops cutting up baddies. With several characters to switch to at any given time, I was always mixing and matching to capitalise on different weapon loadouts. While they all feel quite similar, watching bombastic animations play out is a joy, and will no doubt entrance younger audiences. With how entertaining this can be, it’s sad how rudimentary the puzzle design is throughout each level.

The majority of puzzles boil down to smashing nearby objects into pieces and subsequently using them to build others to reach new areas, scare away enemies or defeat a boss. Spinjitzu skills help rock the boat somewhat, lending each ninja an elemental power to be used in unique situations. Unfortunately, only on a few occasions did these abilities feel well and truly exciting to use. Ninjago’s meat is definitely in its combat and collectibles while the puzzle design sadly lags behind.

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When you aren’t progressing through story missions and gobbling up secret collectibles you can also take optional side-quests from NPCs across the world. The majority of these involve fetching multiple objects or defeating enemies in exchange for a golden brick. These are then used to access special doors scattered across Ninjago, much like they were in previous Lego games.

Rewards from such ventures normally involve precious cheats or unlockable characters hinting at playsets not even mentioned during the film. Traveller’s Tales employing this amount of depth in its cast is really great to see, especially in a platformer so simplistic. Watching small figurines emerge from blind bags as you unlock them is irresistibly charming, proving to be a visual treat I came to anticipate. 

The Lego Ninjago Movie Videogame is a fun platformer that expands on the established formula with an enjoyable combat system. Unfortunately, performance issues and lacklustre level design hold it back from greatness.

Trusted Score

Jade is the Gaming Editor at Trusted Reviews. She handles all things gaming whether it be news, reviews, events or silly features. Seen at outlets such as MTV UK, Kotaku and Trusted Reviews (obviously…

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