--- description: The first 20 minutes of The Lego Batman Movie, in which a character made of small plastic snap-together pieces captures delicate gradations of hubris and... title: Lego Batman Finds the Funny In Existential Angst image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta6255242392612b9/6988b94b0a4a2209189ccdc3/lego-batman.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Entertainment](/section/entertainment/) ## Entertainment Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close * [movies](/tag/movies/) ## movies Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # Lego Batman Finds the Funny In Existential Angst  by [Stephanie Zacharek](/author/stephanie-zacharek/)  ## Stephanie Zacharek Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Film Critic Feb 9, 2017 11:16 AM CUT  Lego Batman (extra ab not pictured) fends off villainy with his mighty claw of plastic. Lego Batman (extra ab not pictured) fends off villainy with his mighty claw of plastic.Warner Bros.  by [Stephanie Zacharek](/author/stephanie-zacharek/)  ## Stephanie Zacharek Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Film Critic Feb 9, 2017 11:16 AM CUT The first 20 minutes of _The Lego Batman Movie_, in which a character made of small plastic snap-together pieces captures delicate gradations of hubris and loneliness, are genius. The opening blast of action uses every color in the jawbreaker palette: Lego Batman (voiced by Will Arnett) saves Lego Gotham from a cadre of villains led by Lego Joker (Zach Galifianakis), with his acid-green molded pompadour and equally acidic ingratiating smile. There’s never any doubt who’ll win. Lego Batman makes a point of showing off his “nine-pack” (he’s so awesome, he has an extra ab). But after the rumble is over, he retreats to cavernous Lego Wayne Manor, shifting straight into moody Christian Bale mode. He pops dinner into the microwave–it hums morosely, its light bathing his forlorn, masked face in a one-is-the-loneliest-number glow. The seconds tick by. Lego Batman’s existential suffering gets funnier with each one. And then the whole thing falls apart. The film, directed by Chris McKay, is a spin-off of 2014 hit _The Lego Movie_, an unapologetic product unapologetically selling a product. Sometimes brash, sometimes wearying, that movie at least felt like it was made by the brightest kid in the class. Not so for Lego Batman. After that kick-ass opening, the picture devolves into an action-action-plot-action-plot-action monotone. Where have all the gags gone? By the end Lego Batman has learned a valuable lesson: family is important! (A lesson, by the way, that’s almost always designed to please adults more than children, who mostly long for chaos and freedom.) Lego Batman, with his comically blank eyes and observant pointed ears, deserves better. No other character with nine abs has ever made misery funnier. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4665019/the-lego-batman-movie-review/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4665019/the-lego-batman-movie-review/"},"headline":"Lego Batman Finds the Funny In Existential Angst","datePublished":"2017-02-09T11:16:28.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T03:13:49.716Z","description":"The first 20 minutes of The Lego Batman Movie, in which a character made of small plastic snap-together pieces captures delicate gradations of hubris and...","url":"https://time.com/4665019/the-lego-batman-movie-review/","keywords":["movies"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta6255242392612b9/6988b94b0a4a2209189ccdc3/lego-batman.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Stephanie Zacharek","jobTitle":"Film Critic","url":"https://time.com/author/stephanie-zacharek/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta6255242392612b9/6988b94b0a4a2209189ccdc3/lego-batman.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"lego-batman","caption":"lego-batman","creditText":"Warner Bros.","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/movies/","name":"movies"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4665019/the-lego-batman-movie-review/","name":"Lego Batman Finds the Funny In Existential Angst"}}]}] ```