The new trailer for Lego Movie 2 mostly takes place in space. Going after Wyldstyle/Lucy (Elizabeth Banks) after she’s kidnapped by a pretty purple spaceship, wholesome everydude protagonist Emmet (Chris Pratt) teams up with Rex Dangervest (also Chris Pratt), a handsomely stubbled archaeologist/galaxy defender/raptor trainer (also a Chris Pratt joke).
The whole crew are back: from Unikitty to Will Arnett’s extra-gravelly Batman. Tiffany Haddish plays a space queen. There’s a drawing-facial-hair-on-your-Lego joke that’s beyond perfect.
But let’s talk about this opening sequence, because it appears to be an extended Mad Max: Fury Road riff.
We open on Wyldstyle narrating grimly from what appears to be the ruins of the Statue Of Liberty. “Once, everything was awesome. Now, everything is bleak.”
You maniacs! You blew it up!
Category is: sand. So much sand.
It’s so coarse. It gets everywhere.
Apparently set five years after the Duplo invasion that closed the first movie, the sequel sets up a world where the toddler-friendly blocks have apparently reduced the city to rubble.
And that’s before it gets invaded.
But yes, it certainly seems like directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller – returning after the success of the first Lego film and perhaps drawing on some of their abortive experience at the helm of Solo – have taken inspiration from the great action film of the decade.
Yes, Mad Max: Fury Road. Don’t @ me.
Compare and contrast:
yesssssss Furiosa
YESSSSS UNIKITTY
Look at this shot of Lego citizens flooding into the dusty Batcave:
It’s not quite Immortan Joe’s Citadel, and there’s plenty of desert-apocalypse media for them to draw on – but the colour scheme is bang on.
So yeah, there’ll be plenty of intergalactic roasting of Chris Pratt – but don’t tell me you’re not looking forward to the potential for a gag where tough-as-nails Wyldstyle swaps out her regular arm for a Furiosa-style mech prosthetic.
Your eight-year-old nephew’s really going to get a kick out of that when you take him to see it for the fourth time.