10 Movies Way Better Than They Had Any Right To Be
5. The LEGO Movie
While their unblemished track record recently came to an end in the wake of their unceremonious firing from the Han Solo movie, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller had made a career up to that point of turning questionable ideas into great movies.
The very premise of The Lego Movie seems overly-cynical in its nature, nothing more than an excuse to increase brand awareness among a generation of kids more interested in playing video games than building with the iconic bricks, and a commercial exercise designed exclusively to sell toys. And in the wrong hands, it could have been just that.
However, in the hands of Lord and Miller it became a hilarious and surprisingly emotional comedy that appealed to audiences of all ages, and even landed an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song thanks to the infuriatingly catchy 'Everything Is Awesome'.
Great work by an A-list voice cast, fantastic animation and the consistently high quality level of both the verbal and visual gags elevated The Lego Movie far above cash-in material (although sales of Lego sets no doubt shot up in the immediate aftermath) to the status of one of the best family movies in recent years.