Imagine if your father was an evil villain who was always trying to capture the city that you lived in. Now imagine that everyone knew that he was your father. Yeah, going to school would be a bit of a bummer with everyone scared of you and the high school cheer team creates a cheer especially for you. School wouldn’t be the best place to be, but at least you have your small group of friends to cheer you up and help fight off your evil dad because you are ninjas.
This is the premise for the LEGO Ninjago Movie which is out in theaters today and is a fun movie for the entire family. If your children liked the LEGO Movie and the LEGO Batman Movie, than your children more than likely will enjoy this movie. I’ll admit I was a little skeptical about this movie at first because I have never watched the show and only knew about the LEGO sets. My children were asking to see this, so when we got invited to a screening, it was a no-brainer to go and check it out.
In the same vein as the other LEGO movies it is pretty cool how everything is created with LEGOs. The mechs that the Ninjago team use are pretty awesome and I would love to get my hands on some of those sets in real life. Another thing that connects all of these movies is the feeling of belonging. Emmet wanted to be part of the crowd. Batman felt he didn’t need anyone to take care of the city and Lloyd, voiced by Dave Franco, is missing that father figure in his life that left him when he was a baby…or so he is told.
The father-son relationship is touched upon in the movie and as a father it is really great to see stories like this pop-up in movies. While Master Wu, voiced by Jackie Chan, might be the closest thing that Lloyd has to a father, he still wishes that his father was in his life, but not as a villain. The scenes between Lloyd and Garmadon, voiced by Justin Theroux, are pretty hilarious. The way Garmadon constantly mispronounces Lloyd’s name, at least for me, doesn’t get annoying. It’s just funny and supposedly it was ad libbed during the making of the movie.
Not to give too much away but the movie was very funny at some moments and serious in others. There was one moment during the film when it went into live action and my entire family started laughing because it came out of nowhere and the clips they showed were just ridiculous that we couldn’t help but laugh.
Other than the message of belonging, there is also a great message about believing in yourself. Each of the Ninjago team is connected to an Earth element and if they believe in enough in themselves, they can harness that power. It’s kind of interesting to see how a robot can believe in himself, but then again, this is a movie so you have to suspend disbelief for a moment. I love Zach Woods in Silicon Valley and hearing him as the White Ninja was just fantastic.
If you and your children are fans of the LEGO movies than I think you will enjoy the LEGO Ninjago Movie. It has something for everyone: Cool looking mechs, funny dialogue, heartwarming story and some pretty cool actions scenes.
KID FRIENDLY
The movie is very kid friendly. I don’t remember any moments where I was like, “How am I going to explain that to my daughter?” The feeling of loneliness and isolation that Lloyd feels might be a good into to talk to your children about treating everyone kindly and being good to everyone.
VIOLENCE
The violence in the movie is all fantasy violence and the only moment that might be too much for your younger children is (Spoiler, unless you’ve seen the commercials) when Lloyd loses his arm.
FANDADS RATING
4 out of 5. The movie gets a special high-five for giving us a blooper reel of Jackie Chan after the credits, just like they do in all of Jackie Chan’s movies.
If you check out the LEGO Ninjago Movie this weekend, let us know what you thought in the comments below.