A Lego Brickumentary

Confession: I am documentary junkie. That said, this film was not exactly a work of art. It has the feeling of an IMAX or theme park film, but don't let that stop you.

The story of Lego is reminiscent of many titans of business; big ideas growing out of a small shop, and so forth. What this movie is really about though is summed up in this statement: "99% of the smartest people in the world do not work for us." Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen explains as he recounts the near death experience of Lego in the early 2000's.

Clearly Lego is *capitalizing on their success. As such, this movie shows how great of a company Lego is; and to be honest, Lego seems to deserving of all the attention it has been getting.

But this "Brickumentary" is more than that. It is also a window into the immensely diverse world of Lego fanboys and girls, (think Bronys,Trekkies, et.al.), and lets us in to the way Lego utilizes "crowd-sourcing", something Lego appears to have been on the cutting edge of. It shows us how Lego has become a medium for the arts, a tool of scientific inquiry, and how little kids who started with a box of plastic bricks were later inspired to engineering things that have helped us in the real world.

My family loved it. Looking forward to watching it again soon.

(PS: my only complaint is that there is a split second or two of non-kid friendly content. Surely the filmmakers knew that their audience would predominantly be children. Some things are better left unsaid or in this case, un-shown...)

LEGOs have been the anomaly of the toy industry since their inception in 1949. While Mattel keeps it head above water with successful, universally recognizable toy lines such as Hot Wheels and Barbie, and Hasbro has had strong success with G.I. Joe, LEGO has found a way to solely capitalize on the versatility and incalculable possibilities of their construction toy. Even though LEGO has succeeded in spawning a variety of spinoffs, such as the ever-so popular and beloved "Bionicles" when I was young, LEGO Architecture, and LEGO Customs, LEGO really only sells one product, whereas other toy companies scramble to try and find the next successful thing to franchise.

Most childhoods I know were accompanied by a LEGO set or two; sitting right beside me as I write this review is a six-foot-long table, admittedly cluttered and disorganized as all Hell, of a variety of LEGO buildings, some erected from the directions out of the box and some from my imagination. As a child, I loved LEGOs and fondly recall making an event out of sitting beside my mother as we built a barrage of sets together. LEGOs were the quintessential gift for children due to the fact that you had the choice of adhering to the instructions that came with every set or exercise your creative freedom by building whatever you found to be enticing. The potential for a universe was at your fingertips and all you had to do was build it.

A LEGO Brickumentary is a film that works to articulate that point and show that LEGO conventions, warehouses, and "master builders," people that work to create record-breaking LEGO sculptures in addition to creating brand new sets, are just as limitless in their scope as the plastic pieces themselves. The creator of the toy was a Danish man by the name of Ole Kirk Christiansen, who created wooden toys in a factory during the 1940's, consistently having to erect new factories following the destruction of one after another in fires. Christiansen purchased a plastic molder upon its invention, marveling at the fact that the machine, while so primitive, could mold and create a wide variety of complex plastic pieces. He found that, when properly manipulated and detailed, plastic blocks could be created and used to construct many different things, which eventually lead to the birth of LEGOs.

The major invention to these multicolored blocks was the "clutch power" added in later, otherwise known as the tiny stubs and holes present on nearly every LEGO block, allowing for secure connectivity and easy transitioning between pieces. Fast-forward decades later and current LEGO engineers and master builders work to create stories and depth behind the characters they create in their new LEGO sets, allowing for a certain richness to come packed in with each construction set. Furthermore, licensed products such as The Avengers, Spider-Man, and Star Wars all found themselves converted to the multicolored bricks in a way that booned the company to record profits and notoriety, in addition to allowing children the freedom to take their beloved characters home in a way that wasn't as vapid as just a plain action figure.

However, our narrator Jason Bateman - who also voices an ordinary LEGO character in the film - tells us how that wasn't always the case. In the mid-2000's, LEGO almost found itself closing its doors, with record-low profits and middling success with their new lines of toys (IE: "Jack Stone" and "4 Plus"). One employee says, at that time, LEGO had become a very arrogant company, one that was hesitant to listen to customer feedback due to perceived superiority on the ends of the CEOS and the employees themselves. When that changed, however, product lines such as LEGO Architecture, a line of universally known and renowned buildings such as the Taj Mahal, Willis Tower, and Empire State Building condensed into LEGO form, and LEGO Customs, a website allowing you to conceive your own LEGO set and having the ability to vote on others for the potential of making it a real set, came to be.

A LEGO Brickumentary's core focus, however, is the fandom and the ostensible impossibilities in size, scope, and popularity LEGOs have achieved on a global level. We are taken into many different conventions, where LEGO fans hold their own competitions (IE: building a LEGO set without being able to see the set of the piece, building LEGOs while the pieces are inside of a bag, and so forth. In addition, we are shown the elaborate codenames that have been given to different pieces and fans of LEGOs, with "AFOL" ("adult fan of LEGOs") being the most common and "MOC" (my own creation) perhaps being the second most. Arguably the most humorous is the nickname for an attractive woman at a LEGO convention, known as a "one-by-five" because LEGO does not make a one-by-five piece.

Finally, directors Kief Davidson and Daniel Junge show us how LEGO is working to break records every day. We see the creation of a life-size ex-wing fighter, using over five million LEGO bricks, equating to more than eight tons of material. With that, numerous "master builders," engineers, and interior designers work to create and perfect the steel frame and structure behind the fighter.

A LEGO Brickumentary is, admittedly, fan service; similar to Plastic Galaxy: The Story of Star Wars Toys, anyone already acquainted and thoroughly in love with the product in hand will find themselves delighted by the film solely because of its existence. While corny when it focuses on Bateman's LEGO character, this is a fairly solid look into a company that continues to expand and shows no sign of slowing down, creatively or financially.

Directed by: Kief Davidson and Daniel Junge.

A Lego Brickumentary (2014)

*** (out of 4)

Jason Bateman narrates this somewhat long-winded by highly informative documentary about the history of LEGOs and why everyone loves them so much. The documentary covers how the company got started, the early troubles with fire and then goes into detail about how the company evolved over the decades to become a global phenomenon. We get interviews with fans, master builders as well as people who have a dream job of creating new models.

If you're a fan of LEGOs then you'll certainly love this film as it really does tell you everything you need to know about the company and its fans. The documentary does a very good job with the history but it also gives you a good idea of what they plan on doing in the future including how they got fans involved with what they come up with . We get to see some of the amazing large creations that superfans have come up with as well as some of the fan-made movies.

This movie was nothing but dope. As dope as The Lego Movie.

A LEGO Brickumentary explores what seems to be by the documentary standards a history of the invention of Lego, but mostly it goes through how Lego has changed lives since it's invention.

It's a geek culture that I am aware of but sadly I'm not fully a part of, despite my admiration to the product. The filmmakers due an amazing job of impressing me with how far beyond the bricks have come from being just a toy.

It's fitting that the documentary spends a lot of time unavailing a life size X-wing fighter from the movie Star Wars, another product that sparked the same type of geek culture.

But the movie documents how Legos are more awesome than the Star Wars movies (except Star Wars geeks have better nicknames). The documentary showcases how Kids teens and Adults use Legos literally as a tool for the imagination, similar to a pen and a pad (and this is what I love most about the toys). It also shows the growing cult phenomenon that goes outside of the Lego company with people who are able to make a living off of Legos without the company's permission and how Lego encourages this, not something you expect from the #2 biggest toy company in the world.

I feel like Lego does not get enough credit that it deserves, I'm hoping this doc changes that. It has inspired me to pick up the Legos I have.

A Lego Brickumentary, also known as Beyond the Brick: A Lego Brickumentary is a very interestingly done documentary that looks at the global culture, appeal, and history of the Lego Company and its building block toys. The documentary borders on mockumentary at times, and it features some rather confusing scenes, but overall, it's worth a watch, especially if you're a huge fan of the popular brick company. The film shows the audience the origin of Legos through its country of origin, Denmark, to modern day. The film goes through both the accomplishments and struggles of the company, and how it almost went bankrupt around 1999. The film shows how the company changed with the times, as well as, footage of Lego conventions, and various fans using their Legos in very creative ways. Creative use of Legos included a person who built an entire house out of Lego bricks, and another person who built an actual car using Legos. Both examples are crazily creative. The movie even contains scenes showing how Legos are improving the world, with some psychiatrist using Legos to help their patients, and one boy, named Adrian Pitt, who is using Legos to help with his speech problem.

The documentary is narrated by Jason Bateman, playing a fictional Lego, who appears sometimes in well-done stop-motion sequences and tells the audience about an aspect of Legos. What I appreciated about these particular sequences was the amount of creativity that went into them. It must have taken the filmmakers hours just to make one sequence. We even get to see some behind the scenes footage of the making of the recent The Lego Movie.

The film contains interviews with various people who work at Lego, as well as, entertainers such as Ed Sheeran, Trey Parker, and Dwight Howard, all of whom relate their personal experiences and appreciation for Legos. These sequences are nice, as we get to see that Lego fans go well-beyond supposed children or even nerds.

In spite of all of the praise I've given this film, I can't say it's perfect. One thing, a Brickumentary falls apart in, is it's a lack of focus. While all the various Lego stories are interesting, much of the material that happens at the actual Lego studios left me uninterested. Maybe I'm just not into the actual behind the scenes aspects of the company, but I did find the actual Lego creative stories more eventful, and thankfully, they do make up the bulk of the film.

That major flaw aside, A Lego Brickumentary is a fairly well-made, well-done documentary that serves as a good look at the history and success of one of the world's biggest toy companies, who got popular simply off one product, and not many companies can say that.