The Lego Batman Movie may be the best Batman movie yet

Darkness. No parents. These, as 2014’s ‘The Lego Movie’ memorably declared, are the two key things about Batman, the 78-year old masked detective who – despite substantial competition from the more archetypal superhero, Superman – has become the figurehead of the DC brand.

‘The Lego Movie’s take on Batman, impeccably voiced by Will Arnett, did what few thought Warner Bros and DC would ever dare allow: it made fun of the character’s now ultra-serious image in the wake of Christopher Nolan’s ‘Dark Knight’ trilogy, and brought back a level of humour which the property had not embraced since 1997’s infamous ‘Batman and Robin.’

Given both the success of ‘The Lego Movie’ and the enduring popularity of the Caped Crusader, a spin-off movie was a logical move from a commercial perspective. However, any fears that ‘The Lego Batman Movie’ is nothing but a shameless marketing ploy can be cast aside. Oh, it’ll leave viewers (the parents as much as the kids) clamouring to rush out and buy all the associated Lego sets and memorabilia, for sure, but this isn’t all the film achieves. It presents the bizarre and colourful world that Batman inhabits in a suitably garish manner for which the Lego movie format is ideal, and serves as both a witty send-up and a loving celebration of the character’s near-eight decades history on the screen and the page.

Ignoring the events (and the broader multiverse) of ‘The Lego Movie,’ the film sees Arnett’s Batman working alone – just the way he likes it – on his home turf in Gotham City. Fans will be in heaven in the epic opening which sees him do battle with just about every Batman villain you could name, and a fair few you’ve almost certainly never heard of. And within minutes, even the most knowledgeable viewer will be struggling to keep up with the amount of nods to the existing Bat-movies; I for one particularly enjoyed Arnett’s delivery of a classic Michael Keaton line early on, and it’s not hard to note at least a couple of snarky digs at ‘Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice’ and ‘Suicide Squad.’

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Yet it’s not all fan-pleasing spectacle and in-jokes. While it’s first and foremost a comedy, ‘The Lego Batman Movie’ gently explores the underlying trauma that makes Batman who he is; and yes, for the vast majority of the film he’s just Batman, with Bruce Wayne barely getting more than a cameo. Obviously, this being a U-rated film, things don’t get too gritty, and mercifully this is one of the few big screen takes on the character not to feature yet another restaging of the death of Bruce Wayne’s parents. Even so, the tragic undercurrents of the character are delved into in a sensitive, but happily never sentimental manner.

The key theme, as the film’s early trailers emphasised, is Batman’s fear of being close to other people, but this is something our hero is forced to deal with as two new people enter his life; Dick Grayson, the orphan Bruce Wayne ‘accidentally’ adopts, and Barbara Gordon, here promoted from being merely Jim Gordon’s daughter to his successor as Gotham City’s police commissioner. As Dick AKA Robin, Michael Cera is perfect casting, his breathy, childlike delivery a perfect compliment to the character’s perpetually wide-eyed design, whilst Rosario Dawson brings a bit more gravitas to Barbara – and later Batgirl – than we’ve typically seen from the character before. (There’s a bit of romantic tension between Barbara and Batman, but don’t worry, it doesn’t get weird like last year’s ‘The Killing Joke’ did.) In addition, Ralph Fiennes is on fine form as Alfred, who gets to be a far greater part of the action than he ever has in any Batman movie before now.

Of course, this isn’t just another Batman movie; it’s another Lego movie, and that means bold, over-the-top visuals, and a veritable smorgasbord of fan-pleasing character crossovers. As previously stated, it sports pretty much the entire of Batman’s villains gallery – headed up wonderfully by Zach Galifianakis’s Joker (yes, as if it needs to be said, he’s better than Leto) – but these are by no means the only baddies who join the show. I’ll say no more on that so as not to spoil the surprise, but rest assured, there will be a great many cheers of delight from young and old alike.

And this, surely, is the greatest thing about ‘The Lego Batman Movie;’ for the first time in 20 years, we have a big screen take on Batman that the whole family can sit down and watch together. As much as the DCEU camp have stated their intent to steer future live-action movies in a lighter direction than that of the painfully dour ‘Batman V Superman,’ it doesn’t look likely that those films will ever really be suitable for younger viewers, which is a real shame given that, once upon a time, children were the key audience for these characters. It’s a refreshing change, then, to have a movie about Batman which viewers of all ages can equally enjoy; a film which presents a heightened take on the character, embracing the tongue-in-cheek elements which the last four Bat-movies have gone out of their way to suppress, and brings the Dark Knight back into the light again.

Preview screenings of ‘The Lego Batman Movie’ are taking place this weekend, before it goes on general release from this coming Friday, 10 February.

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