Movie Reviews and Previews

   Spoiler alert: This isn't really a continuation of the first LEGO Movie so much as an attempt to sustain the original's subversive sense of fun while dumping its characters into an incongruous and frequently impenetrable plot.

 I'm a fan of the 2014 film, which offered one delightful left turn after another as it explored the secret lives of those building toys you step on in the dark. The sequel picks up the action from the very moment the first film ended, but launches into a frenzied, dizzyingly paced fit of plot development that has something to do with space aliens, kidnapping, time travel and sibling rivalries. 

 As was the case the first time around, the animation is lively and the voice acting is first-rate. But the whole enterprise smacks of desperation, bristling with unimaginative pop culture references and weighed down by a convoluted world-within-a-world conceit.