'The LEGO Batman Movie' delivers hilarious jokes, references

One of the challenges of making a 'clever' children's movie is knowing how to simultaneously entertain parents and older children while not getting too carried away with references and side jokes. "The LEGO Batman Movie" (2017), successor to the critically acclaimed "The LEGO Movie" (2014), finds the perfect balance. The movie subverts the depressing and morally ambiguous character of Batman by giving him a happy ending, in which he learns the value of friendship, teamwork and chosen family, while still paying tribute to classic Batman movies, famous movie villains and subtle one-liners. Though the movie is silly at times, it’s also peppered with solid, laugh-out-loud moments.

This is not to say that Batman is a campy superhero in this movie. In fact, he’s the self-entitled, cruel, obsessive and arrogant Batman who DC Comics fans have come to know and love, but with a good-hearted sense of humor. Voiced by a gravelly, over-the-top Will Arnett, Batman claims he has nine abs (eight pairs and one in the center) and calls himself the “greatest orphan of all time” while visiting Gotham City’s orphanage. He lives in his massive, dark Batcave and spends his time microwaving lobster thermidor, watching "Jerry Maguire" (1996) and staring silently at framed photos of himself with his late parents. He is alone except for his butler-turned-surrogate-father Alfred (Ralph Fiennes), who constantly worries about him and is seen reading a book called “How to Set Limits for Your Out-of-Control Child.”

But when the new police commissioner Barbara Gordon (Rosario Dawson) launches forces Batman to work in conjunction with the police force, Batman is outraged. But he is also so gripped by the beauty of Barbara (and her square, lego rear) that he inadvertently agrees to adopt an over-eager, dim child from the orphanage, Dick Grayson (Michael Cera). Meanwhile, the Joker is desperate to win the title of Batman’s Greatest Enemy and spends most of the movie trying to get Batman to notice him, softly saying, “I hate you” and crying when Batman does not say it back.

The movie piles on more absurdity and action from there. At one point, the Joker releases the worst villains in all of history from the Phantom Zone, a kind of virtual-reality heaven that houses an assortment of characters including Lord Voldemort, King Kong, the Daleks and the Eye of Sauron. The villains wreak havoc on Gotham City. Batman also reluctantly allows Dick Grayson to become his assistant Robin and even more reluctantly accepts help from Barbara and Alfred, wearing Batman’s original blue and grey costume. Slowly but surely, Batman learns how to let himself be part of a family.

Additionally, Robin provides some slapstick humor as a naive, cheery child who believes Batman and Bruce Wayne are two different people and both his dads. This running joke, however, earned the ire of a conservative Evangelical site called lifesitenews.com, which released an article titled "Beware: LEGO Batman movie promotes gay adoption.” The article also criticized the movie for “homoerotic attraction and penis jokes.” It is true that Batman and the Joker’s relationship unfolds like a romantic drama, supplementing hatred for love, and the movie does sneak in a single joke off the name 'Dick' in one of the best lines in the movie.

But as an animated, PG-rated movie, "The LEGO Batman Movie" could hardly be described as ‘edgy,’ much less as gay propaganda. Batman himself, however, delivers some solid burns: his password for the Batcave's master computer is ihateironman, and he even takes a swing at DC’s movie "Suicide Squad" (2016) by saying, “What, we should let the criminals fight the criminals? That’s a dumb idea."

The jokes are a little mocking, but the movie is far from cynical. After decades of movies in which Batman is seen fighting his own demons and engaging in risky behavior, this movie provides an alternate reality for the character: Batman becomes a real hero with a real, loving family. The movie is as much a comedy as it is a character study, if not a true story of redemption.