THE LEGO MOVIE

Lego loser makes good.

In this novelization of The Lego Movie, Everytoy Emmet has bought the line peddled by President (secretly evil Lord) Business lock, stock and brick. He happily joins all the other residents of Bricksburg in singing “Everything Is Awesome” morning, noon and night, and he loves the TV show Where Are My Pants? When he discovers a strange object called the Piece of Resistance on the construction site where he works, he reluctantly assumes the role of anointed Special One, prophesied to save the world from annihilation by the superweapon Kragle. Together with a motley group of Master Builders that includes punk rebel Wyldstyle, Batman, the wizard Vitruvius and the dippy amalgam UniKitty, he takes on President/Lord Business, his chief minion, Bad Cop, and countless Lego robots and micromanagers. The film loses a lot in its translation to print. Innately funny visual gags like Emmet’s interchangeable outfits and his Lego houseplant fall flat. The reveal of the fearsome Kragle as a tube of Krazy Glue with some letters missing is thoroughly unfunny, as it must be laboriously explained in prose, and, lacking both a visual and an explanation, the fact that the Piece of Resistance is the tube’s cap will be utterly lost on readers not familiar with the movie. As adapter Howard has elected (or been directed) to write the novelization from the point of view of the Lego characters, the metatextual moments in which the characters interact with the human space that surrounds their Lego worlds lose all their punch (and sense).

Fans of the movie hoping to re-create the experience will be disappointed, as will kids hoping for a preview—why bother? (Fantasy. 8-12)