Judging by the Trailer: "The LEGO Movie"

By Rev. Adam McKinney on February 6, 2014

Before we get started, I think it is my duty to urge you to fall into the deliriously insane rabbit hole that is the movie Foodfight!. Set in a Toy Story-aping world of sentient corporate food mascots, Foodfight! is a fascinatingly inept failure of a movie. Almost certainly conceived as some sort of long con, the animated film cost $65 million dollars to make (though it looks cobbled together from an old Windows Movie Maker demo reel), stars a cavalcade of voice talent, and was released in 2012 after sitting on a shelf for the better part of a decade. It may have a legitimate claim to being the worst film ever made.

Foodfight! never left my mind while I watched the trailer for The LEGO Movie. Because LEGO has no mythology of its own, The LEGO Movie assembles a roster of pop culture icons in LEGO form - Batman, Wonder Woman, God and Abraham Lincoln all make appearances - to surround a plucky no-name as the lead.

It's a head-scratcher trying to figure out just who this movie is for. Of course, there are legions of LEGO fans out there, and the recent LEGO video games are apparently quite charming, but one could easily make the case that The LEGO Movie is some sort of meta-commentary on the state of franchise adaptations in an age of withering creativity. In which case, I totally see what you did, there. But, the sad truth is that this is likely a result of that withering creativity, not a commentary thereof.

So, what we are left with is an oddity. Though this film's pedigree handily outranks that of Foodfight! - as almost everything must - it doesn't take much to see a kindred spirit shared by these two films. The biggest difference seems to be that Foodfight!, shameful disaster though it may be, will always be remembered for its awfulness by fans of shitty cinema. The LEGO Movie's legacy is less clear.

My guess is that Foodfight! will be the "burn out" to The LEGO Movie's "fade away."

LINK: A Nerd Alert has been issued for the South Sound