The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part

Plot

After the Piece of Resistance destroyed the Kragle, Duplo aliens showed up and threatened to wreck everything. Emmet tried to make friends by building them a heart, but one alien ate it and asked for more. Lucy and the Master Builders thought this was an attack and fought back, which left Bricksburg in ruins. Five years later, a teenage Finn had rebuilt the city as Apocalypseburg, now battered by repeated Duplo raids.

Many people had vanished while trying to find the Duplo home planet. Emmet stayed cheerful, unlike Lucy and the others, but he kept having visions of something called "Armamageddon." A mini-doll named General Sweet Mayhem arrived, kidnapped all of Emmet's friends, and took them to Queen Watevra Wa'Nabi, a shape-shifting ruler of the Systar System. Emmet asked the Master Builders for help rescuing Lucy and the rest, but they said no because they thought he wasn't tough enough for the Systar System.

So Emmet built a spaceship and went through the "Stairgate" to chase Mayhem. Meanwhile, Watevra seemed to have brainwashed Emmet's friends into loving her world and convinced Batman to marry her, hoping to unite the Lego, Mini-doll, and Duplo worlds. Only Lucy doubted Watevra's intentions. Emmet's ship got badly damaged and nearly hit an asteroid field, but a rugged adventurer named Rex Dangervest saved him.

After hearing Emmet's story, Rex offered to help and took him to the Systar System. Along the way, Emmet tried to copy Rex's style and learn his "Master Breaker" skills. When they arrived, they quickly found Lucy and learned about the wedding plans, which Rex, Lucy, and Emmet all thought was a trick to start Armamageddon.

Cast

Chris Pratt provides the voice for Emmet Brickowski, a construction worker and Master Builder from Bricksburg who is also Lucy's boyfriend. Pratt also takes on the role of Rex Dangervest, a character who calls himself a galaxy-defender, archaeologist, cowboy, and raptor trainer. It turns out Rex is actually Emmet from the future, but a dangerously nihilistic version of him, and this character draws from some of Pratt's most well-known movie roles.

Plot

Elizabeth Banks voices Lucy, also known as Wyldstyle, who is a Master Builder and Emmet's girlfriend. Will Arnett plays Bruce Wayne, or Batman, a DC Comics superhero who is a Master Builder and happens to be Wyldstyle's ex-boyfriend. Tiffany Haddish voices Queen Watevra Wa'Nabi, an alien queen from the Systar System who can change her shape. She was originally created by Emmet as a heart, and her name is a play on the phrase "whatever I want to be," which describes her ability to shift into many different forms during the film.

Stephanie Beatriz voices General Sweet Mayhem, an intergalactic mini-doll who commands the Systar System Armed Forces as its naval leader and law enforcer, serving as the queen's right-hand assistant. Charlie Day voices Benny, a Master Builder who is a spaceman from the 1980s and obsessed with spaceships; unlike in the first movie, he now has a metallic arm. Alison Brie voices Princess Unikitty, also called Ultrakatty, a Master Builder who is a cat with a unicorn horn.

In this sequel, she is already red from the start instead of turning red when angry, and over time she has gained the ability to become a giant version of herself named Ultrakatty whenever a fight is about to start. Nick Offerman voices MetalBeard, a Master Builder who is a huge bionic pirate with a severed head, having lost his original body in a past battle with Lord Business's forces. Jadon Sand voices Finn, a teenager in the real world whose imagination is what makes the events in the Lego universe happen.

Brooklynn Prince voices Bianca, Finn's younger sister, and she is the reason the aliens from the planet Duplo attacked Bricksburg. Maya Rudolph voices Mom, the unnamed mother of Finn and Bianca, who in the real world causes something called "Armamageddon," a mix of the words "our mom" and "Armageddon." In the first film, this character was voiced off-screen by Amanda Farinos.

Production

The journey to bring a sequel to The Lego Movie to the screen began in early 2014. Jared Stern and Michelle Morgan were brought on to write the follow-up in February of that year. By March, it was announced that Chris McKay, who had co-directed the first film's animation, would take the director's chair, with Phil Lord and Christopher Miller serving as producers. That April, McKay expressed a desire to include more female characters than male ones in the sequel.

Later in July, Chris Pratt indicated he wanted to return as the voice of Emmet, while Will Arnett was considering reprising his role as Batman but had not yet committed. In October, Warner Bros. set release dates for The Lego Batman Movie in May 2017 and The Lego Movie 2 in May 2018.

That same month, Lord and Miller signed on to write the sequel. Around the same time, Australian animation studio Animal Logic entered talks to produce the next three Lego films, with the New South Wales government agreeing to contribute financially, though the deal was not yet finalized. In November, Lord and Miller told the BBC that the film would feature more female characters.

In February 2015, the sequel was retitled The Lego Movie Sequel, and Rob Schrab was named its new director, replacing McKay, who had moved on to direct The Lego Batman Movie. By November of that year, Miller confirmed that the first draft of the script was finished. Additional rewrites came from Raphael Bob-Waksberg, Dominic Russo, and Matthew Fogel. In February 2017, Schrab was replaced by Mike Mitchell, a change reportedly driven by creative differences.

Production officially began in Canada on October 2, 2017. During the press day for The Lego Ninjago Movie, producer Dan Lin revealed that Lord and Miller were still rewriting the script during production. He also noted that the sequel would include more songs, a decision influenced by the success of Disney musicals like Frozen and Moana. The animation was handled by Animal Logic, which used an updated version of its trace renderer, Glimpse, to enhance on-screen detail and depth-of-field.

Christopher Miller dedicated the finished film to his mother, Charlotte "Charie" Miller, who was born in July 1949 and died in December 2018, two months before the movie's release.

Reception

The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part earned $105.9 million in the United States and Canada and $93.6 million internationally, bringing its global total to $199.6 million. It is regarded as the franchise's second box-office disappointment, after The Lego Ninjago Movie from 2017. In the U.S. and Canada, it opened on February 8, 2019, alongside What Men Want, Cold Pursuit, and The Prodigy. Early projections expected a $50–55 million debut from 4,276 theaters, but after an $8.5 million first day (including $1.5 million from Thursday night previews), estimates dropped to $31 million.

The film ultimately opened with $34.1 million from 4,303 theaters, finishing first at the box office. That figure was 69% higher than The Lego Ninjago Movie's opening, but 50% lower than The Lego Movie's, 35% lower than The Lego Batman Movie's, and the franchise's second-lowest opening. Deadline Hollywood attributed the underperformance to franchise fatigue from two prior spin-offs and Warner Bros.' marketing, which resembled the first film's campaign, leading audiences to view the sequel as derivative and too similar to its predecessor.

The film ended its U.S. and Canadian theatrical run on May 9, 2019. On Rotten Tomatoes, a percentage of critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating. The site's critical consensus states: "While it isn't quite as much fun as its predecessor, The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part fits neatly into an animated all-ages franchise with heart and humor to spare." On Metacritic, the film holds a weighted average score of 65 out of 100 from 52 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews."

CinemaScore audiences gave it an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale, lower than the first film's "A." PostTrak rated it 4 out of 5 stars, and social media monitor RelishMix described online responses as "great."

Did You Know?

• The film's song 'Catchy Song' was written by Jon Lajoie and recorded by Dillon Francis, featuring T-Pain and Alaya High (under her stage name That Girl Lay Lay).
• The marketing campaign for the film cost $100 million and included promotional partners such as Chevrolet, Chiquita, McDonald's, Discover Card, and Turkish Airlines.