Can a movie made of plastic bricks keep you entertained for 90+ minutes? Join us as we humorously journey through our unexpected viewing of The Lego Ninjago Movie. We admit, our decision was purely for the laughs, and let's just say we found ourselves multitasking midway. As expected though, we have to dissect Lego Ninjago, and that means we must highlight the film's star-studded voice cast and praise its animation quality.
But is humor enough to save an underwhelming film? While the infamous "L-Loyd" joke brought some smiles, our excitement dwindles as we discuss the film's pacing, length, and missed opportunities with its talented cast. We hit all the classic beats for this episode, from comparing this to other Lego hits like The Lego Movie and Lego Batman to acknowledging our slightly bitter adult perspectives, we leave no stone unturned—or should we say, no brick unstacked.
Letterbox'd Synopsis: Six young ninjas are tasked with defending their island home of Ninjago. By night, they’re gifted warriors using their skill and awesome fleet of vehicles to fight villains and monsters. By day, they’re ordinary teens struggling against their greatest enemy…high school.
🔻You can find all important links for the podcast over at https://linktr.ee/waitforitpodcast (which includes our brand new Patreon site!)🔺
🔻BACKGROUND MUSIC PROVIDED BY: "Extenz - Gravity" is under a Creative Commons license Music promoted by BreakingCopyright: https://bit.ly/extenz-gravity 🔺
Can a movie made of plastic bricks keep you entertained for 90+ minutes? Join us as we humorously journey through our unexpected viewing of The Lego Ninjago Movie. We admit, our decision was purely for the laughs, and let's just say we found ourselves multitasking midway. As expected though, we have to dissect Lego Ninjago, and that means we must highlight the film's star-studded voice cast and praise its animation quality.
But is humor enough to save an underwhelming film? While the infamous "L-Loyd" joke brought some smiles, our excitement dwindles as we discuss the film's pacing, length, and missed opportunities with its talented cast. We hit all the classic beats for this episode, from comparing this to other Lego hits like The Lego Movie and Lego Batman to acknowledging our slightly bitter adult perspectives, we leave no stone unturned—or should we say, no brick unstacked.
Letterbox'd Synopsis: Six young ninjas are tasked with defending their island home of Ninjago. By night, they’re gifted warriors using their skill and awesome fleet of vehicles to fight villains and monsters. By day, they’re ordinary teens struggling against their greatest enemy…high school.
🔻You can find all important links for the podcast over at https://linktr.ee/waitforitpodcast (which includes our brand new Patreon site!)🔺
🔻BACKGROUND MUSIC PROVIDED BY: "Extenz - Gravity" is under a Creative Commons license Music promoted by BreakingCopyright: https://bit.ly/extenz-gravity 🔺
Welcome to your go-to source for entertainment. Wait for it.
Speaker 2:
Gaming. Wait for it Anime PLUS ULTRA. Mr Eric Almighty and Phil the Filipino yeah, they've got you covered and all you gotta do is wait for it. This is the Wait For it Podcast. Hey, everyone, welcome back to the Wait For it Podcast. I am your co-host, phil Smith, aka Phil the Filipino, and joining me, as always, is your other co-host, mr Eric Almighty and Eric.
Speaker 2:
We are returning from a well-deserved and a nice break here in the beginning of July as we celebrate it all across the country that Kendrick Lamar gifted us with the Not Like Us music video. It was just beautiful. I was shooting off fireworks, we grilled out in celebration. It was just a really great day, almost as if we should make it like a national holiday going going forward.
Speaker 2:
But, eric, every once in a while we do an episode solely for the memes, and that's definitely what happened here earlier in the year. Even though I stand by it being a solid film and you did admittedly enjoy Real Steel, stand by it being a solid film and you did admittedly enjoy real steel, this is a movie that, amongst other films that we have never seen, that for some reason, we just continue to quote, even though we had never sat down and actually watched the movie. Well, that has happened today, and for those of you who are pretty familiar with our content, you know what the themes usually are. If you're confused as hell about why we're talking about the Lego Ninjago movie, we are also confused as to how we got here and what's going on. So, eric, we'll see how this goes.
Speaker 1:
This is a seven-year-old film that we watched and we are certainly late to the party and, who knows, maybe we'll tap into some sort of lego ninjago movie specific market that we didn't even know existed maybe, uh, but we should warn you while this is the comeuppance for real steel, you guys are the ones who are gonna to suffer, because this is probably going to be our worst episode in a while. It may also be one of our shorter episodes in a minute, in a hot minute. Lego Ninjago film we watched it, no. Were we behind on the other Lego movies? No, were there other animated classics on our list? Yes, but we went with this film. It's going to be a conversation, for sure. Definitely a conversation.
Speaker 2:
Yes. So if you want to listen to maybe a better episode, you can find that. We'll let you know where you can find all of that at the end here. So if you could just listen long enough for us to get the download, we would really appreciate it, and then I'll let you know at the end where you can find a lot of really great content. Uh, that's coming up here the month of july and that we've done previously throughout this year, because 2024 has been great. Uh, we obviously just came off of bull bat suri, so that was a whole lot of fun.
Speaker 1:
So if this is one of the first episodes you've listened to, sorry, we're we're doing this for, like, the five Lego Ninjago fans and for the memes.
Speaker 2:
No, but the thing is, when you post this on TikTok, people are going to be like I love Lego Ninjago and Dave Franco is a revelation. And then we're going to have to defend the Lego Batman movie against this and people are going to tell us why this one is better and it's going to be a whole we're we are 100 bringing up the other lego movies and may talk about them at length.
Speaker 1:
So we absolutely have to, yeah, so but I don't want to argue about the father-son dynamic and the heart of the story I'm gonna hear it I'm gonna take what this movie was, and this movie is absolutely geared towards kids, and we are going to be two bitter adults that for some reason, sat down and watched this film assuming by yourself, because that's what I did.
Speaker 2:
I did, I did and I also, halfway through, decided to multitask through it. So I'm just going to be honest with you guys.
Speaker 1:
It's really funny that we both did that midway through and I know exactly when you did it. So I can't wait to have this conversation. It should be. Without it being obvious, we're talking about the movie Freely. This is again for the fans of Lego Ninjago, or because you really want to understand why we're doing an episode about Lego Ninjago. We are not here to cater to our normal audience, which, again, may not have seen this film. Nope, no spoiler section. This is a spoiler-rific episode. You may not listen to this episode actually. Which, again, may not have seen this film? Nope, no spoiler section. This is a spoiler-rific episode.
Speaker 2:
They may not even listen to this at all. The Lego Ninjago movie came out in 2017. It was directed by I have Kevin James up on IMDb For those of you that aren't patrons. You missed a very in-depth conversation about Kevin James and David Spade. Highly implore you to check that out through our Patreon.
Speaker 2:
Directed by Charlie Bean, paul Fisher, bob Logan, this movie had three directors for some reason. Find your inner peace. Six young ninjas are tasked with defending their island home of Ninjago. By night, they're gifted warriors using their skill and awesome fleet of vehicles to fight villains and monsters. By day, they're ordinary teens struggling against their greatest enemy high school.
Speaker 2:
So, eric, as we mentioned, you know we kept seeing really funny clips of this movie and we were very interested in checking it out because I think I'm speaking for you correctly we love the Lego movie, love the Lego Batman movie movie. I don't think I've seen the leg, the second lego movie, or if I did, I don't really remember it, but this is a style of animation and also a type of comedy as far as delivery and writing that we have been drawn to in the past, that's been very solid again, the clips that we had seen on like social media, very funny. And I mean, as far as like the Lego animation goes, we'll just go with the low hanging fruit Still solid, still very good, still works. I never watched the Lego Ninjago show, did you?
Speaker 1:
I did not either. No. In fact, when looking for Lego Ninjago, which I had to watch on freebie with ads, Didn't love that, but when I was looking for it I had a bit of a difficult time because there were so many other apparently shows Ninjago very popular.
Speaker 2:
Yes, it is very popular and that came up quite a bit in the reviews on Letterboxd and also, having worked at GameStop for a long time, the Lego Ninjago video games are also very popular. So, but again, this animation style still is really, really cool. I would like to see them explore. Like I'm excited for the Pharrell documentary I think is going to be in Lego, like that concept I think is really neat, some of that humor as far as like the world, and you know, like the the villain, like the world, and you know, like the the villain being like a cat, you know that's attracted to a laser pointer, like all that's like unique, you know, all that is very in line with the first Lego movie, uh, which, um, which has similar themes, um, as far as the voice cast goes, uh, you know, dave Franco, justin Theroux, fred Armisen, uh, olivia Munn, kamail Nanjiani, michael Pena, definitely Zach Woods, jackie Chan, definitely names you would recognize for sure.
Speaker 2:
And Eric, I mean, I guess we'll, well, I guess, first off, we'll talk about that, I'll bring it back a little bit. You know, as far as animation, I think, again, this still works very well.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I was like stop speed running through everything I really was about to.
Speaker 1:
I know and I appreciate it because I asked you let's make this a brisk 20 minute episode. I'm glad you paused, though, because I do really want to focus animation wise and just mention it. I think the Lego movies, criminally, are underrated for their animation style. Like it's a very clean and very good looking movie. Um, and again, I don't remember much about the lego movie 2 either, but that movie came out in like 2019. The fact that we haven't had multiple lego movies since then not just one but multiple I think is a crime, and I think it's a amazing, amazing job.
Speaker 1:
The way that they're able to blend things in. Yes, did that cat kind of not look great? That was kind of the point. But outside of that, like again, the live action elements when we talk about animation, they are top notch, so I'm glad you brought that up, and in the cast I think I saw Abby Jacobson, who we just did. Uh, mitchell's versus the machines, um, so again, nice callback there. But uh, yeah, no, phil, take it away, uh and bring us home Cause. Again, the first half of this movie has a lot. I think a lot of the memes also were from that first half of the movie. And then, when the second half of the movie comes where they're basically on a journey. Uh it, it goes off the rails from a interest perspective, at least for me.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, that's a really good point as far as why there aren't more of these. Again, to get a little bit off topic here, but the first Lego movie made 468 million worldwide. This only made 123. So you're talking about a steep drop off. Again, maybe a more niche fan base, lego Batman back up, back up to 312 and then the lego movie 2 back down to 192. So, you know, maybe there has been, there have obviously been various levels of success, but that hasn't come out.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, like you said, 2019. Um, it is interesting they haven't taken another stab at it, especially with how successful, like mario been, sonic, some of those properties. But yeah, I'll say this, as far as characters go, like nobody is doing anything here really amazing, other than, I think, eric I don't know if you agree Justin Theroux as the villain, slash dad as Garmadon, and that was really the whole hook for us as far as that type of delivery, that type of comedy, and I think that delivered. I'm gonna be honest, I don't know about you. I never got tired of the lloyd joke. It went on throughout the whole movie. It's probably the clip you've seen if you've never seen the movie. I thought it was funny from beginning to end and I didn't get tired of it. But as far as like the rest of the humor, it's incredibly hit or miss and a lot of misses a lot.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, and again, the it's probably the joke. I know we keep saying we like it's the joke. There were some jokes. I think we just saw the le lloyd clip and for some reason we just couldn't get lego ninjago out of our head and for that reason it was worth it. Uh, again, if you're a child watching this movie, it has everything you need from a father-son like element. And then the second half they obviously are like reconciling a little bit. So like I get all that it. Just none of it was interesting After Laloid shows that he's the Green Ninja. That's it. That's it the rest of the movie. Phil is a fever dream to me and I think it's the bigger issue at hand here. I'm sure you'll agree. Why is this movie over an hour and a half? Why is this movie so long? I don't really understand it. So from a kid's movie perspective, from a critical standpoint, why is this movie so long? It doesn't make sense.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, it definitely drags on, especially towards the end. There's just too much exposition dump and it's a lot of one of the the best reviews I saw on Letterboxd that really sums it up is it's very tell, not show this movie like. From what I know about Lego Ninjago, it's very much about the action and the ninjas and and all of the fighting and there's just not really enough of that. And I'll say this like one thing that really bummed me out is because I love Jackie Chan Adventures the animated show. It's incredible and Jackie Chan is is not good in this. Dave Franco is is fine. Kamail Nanjiani I've never really been the biggest fan of his voiceover work, as much as I love him.
Speaker 2:
Olivia Munn, also interchangeable. I didn't even know that was Fred Armisen until later in the day. So I actually paid $3 for this because I was not going to. I was watching it on Amazon and a one out of seven ads came up for the first break. I was like, no, I'm just going to give them $3.50, and Dave Franco can get his $0.10 royalty check here in the next month from me Because I was not going to watch seven ads. I don't know how many you got on your end, but one out of seven in a row, I was like, absolutely not, I'm going to get through this and I'm just going to give them $3.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, absolutely not, I'm gonna get through this and I'm just gonna give them three dollars. Yeah, no, again, I I sat through them all. Uh, I I just whenever the ads came on, which again, phil knows I'm a, I'm a no ads on youtube kind of guy there's not a streaming service I pay for that has ads.
Speaker 1:
I'm not a peasant, but today I was full-on peasant because I was not paying $3 for this movie and I wouldn't recommend you do either. Again, this movie is a fun time. I would recommend checking it out. If you have a kid, they'd probably love this. And I say that, phil, as a criticism, because you and me love the first Lego movie, and the Lego Batman movie is not only probably the best Lego movie and the Lego Batman movie is not only probably the best Lego movie, it's also arguably a top three Batman film, just being honest. So, again, that's just really telling. And, phil, I think this came out the same year as Lego Batman. I don't even recall that. So really, really interesting to see. I'm also very curious to see, from a critic standpoint, where that all ended up, because, again, people love this movie but they don't necessarily like shout it from the rooftops.
Speaker 2:
They just kind of quote the laloy joke, which again, is a problem, especially for people like us here's, like the biggest sin that a film can commit, eric, for us, I think, is it's just boring. And when a film is just not, it doesn't have to have the most amazing cinematography and dialogue and all of that, but when it's just a bore, then it's really hard. You can't come all of that. But, like, when it's just a bore, then it's really hard, you can't come back from that. And yeah, you are right, they came out the same year, about six months apart Lego Batman February.
Speaker 2:
Lego Ninjago September, which is interesting because you know, january, february is like that time where studios just throw movies out to die, but obviously Lego Batman did very, very well and a he's out to die, but obviously lego batman did very, very well. Um, and all a lot of that has to do with will arnett is an excellent batman, so, um, maybe they needed that here. Like dave franco, 2017 was probably a pretty hot name for them to grab, but yeah, it just, it's just a bore to get through. Like, like you said, your kids will definitely enjoy it, but I don't really remember anything outside of what we already saw and that's probably the biggest sin that it can commit yeah, 100, agree, I couldn't say it better.
Speaker 1:
And phil, uh, we're about that time. We're about the time I'm gonna keep us on the mark. Uh, I think we said all that we could say about this movie. Again, it was like an hour 40 minutes.
Speaker 2:
Like do you have that thing on imdb where you pull up is this movie? Again, it was like an hour 40 minutes. Do you have that thing on IMDb where you pull up is this movie better than Lego Ninjago?
Speaker 1:
Oh yeah, that was a lot of fun and that also really did well for socials. Thank you for reminding me.
Speaker 2:
I would have been really irritated if we watched this movie and I didn't do that, yeah, shout out to the guy that said that Encanto was trash, some of those other movies on there that were terrible. Just to the guy that didn't like Turning Red that movie wasn't for you, just so you know. We weren't the demographic for that film.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I think, yeah, okay, I can definitely pull from this. I got to skip past all the Ninjago references All the shows, yeah. All right, so let's get the easy one out of the way. Is Lego Ninjago better than the Lego movie?
Speaker 2:
Nope.
Speaker 1:
Okay, lego Batman? Absolutely not Either of the angry birds films.
Speaker 2:
Oh, the first, angry birds, is pretty bad. I haven't seen the second one. I'm going to say it's better than the Angry Birds movie. I did not, just for the sheer fact of the villain is at least funny. At least Garmadon is funny. But I did not like the Angry Birds movie.
Speaker 1:
It says one of the films, so I'll just say any Madagascar film.
Speaker 2:
No, madagascar is definitely better. Especially, I think, madagascar 3 is an underrated gem.
Speaker 1:
That's a hot take. Okay, sonic the Hedgehog.
Speaker 2:
No, absolutely not. Neither one of them.
Speaker 1:
Which is weird. Yeah, that it's under this list.
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Speaker 1:
Minions or any Despicable Me film.
Speaker 2:
I have not seen Minions, but no Despicable Me. 1 and 2 are way better than this.
Speaker 1:
I have not seen three and finally, uh, mr peabody and sherman you know damn well, I have not seen mr peabody I know I wanted to give it a shot, though, so you can't blame me for trying. All right, yeah, that's our more like this again. This one's a little bit weirder because the first like eight are Ninjago. So yeah. Yeah. Ninjago 2019, ninjago 112 episodes. 2011,. Ninjago Masters of Shinjutsu 100 episodes. What is this?
Speaker 2:
That came up quite a bit, Like I said in the reviews, is that the show, like it, did not do justice to the show. So not that I'm ever going to watch it, but I can definitely feel for those people that were probably excited for this and then got a movie that was pretty subpar.
Speaker 1:
So yeah, oh, the real last one, Spongebob. Any of the Spongebob movies.
Speaker 2:
No, it's definitely not better than the Spongebob movie.
Speaker 1:
All right, I tried, absolutely not. I tried Nope.
Speaker 2:
So as far as reviews, let's get to our reviews. But first we'll go over Rotten Tomatoes and the Letterboxd score. Rotten Tomatoes 56% on the Tomatometer and a 46% audience score, so just not great all around. I'm kind of surprised that it is a. It looks like it does peak at three as far as most of the ratings that it has gotten. So you know, I guess that evens out. I gave this a two and both of those are for the villain which I am routinely forgetting his name, so that Garbadon, and both of those stars are for him, because everything else in this movie is just so boring. So I guess you can split one star between him and the other star between the animation, because it's still great, but other than I couldn't give it anything higher than this. I mean, maybe you could convince me a 2.5, but you'd lose that argument I do believe this puts it above the shining still, though, oh 100.
Speaker 1:
Okay, yeah, it's still above the shining good good, as long as that is that, as long as that stays intact can't wait for people to chop that that audio up that'll be great.
Speaker 1:
um, phil, I'm right there with you. I'm gonna be honest, I was teetering on a three because I could recommend it for people who have kids. Um, but but when I, when I step away and you know how I am with movies if I'm multitasking during a movie, that's a bad sign. That means I'm not really interested. And if a movie is going to make me do that, I definitely have to give it a two and a half. I can't give it a three. Uh, I can't sit there and watch a movie and pretend to be watching it at some points. So that is where I sit at a two and a half. That is my rating, and could it go lower, possibly, who knows? But right now, two and a half is what my heart says and that's what I'm going to go with.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, we kind of talked about this. Obviously Mitchells and the Machines much better movie, but we did talk about this with Mitchells and Machines as far as a story that has already been told. This has been told a million times. It is varied by the book which, again, for a kid's movie, is totally fine. But, yeah, as far as what I was hoping this would be, it was not so, eric, anything else you want to mention about the Lego Ninjago movie? Do you want to talk about any other movie, maybe that you've seen recently to make up for time?
Speaker 1:
Otherwise, I think we've covered it. No, I'd like to, in the post show, discuss what we're going to watch to make up for this disaster next month.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, it's gonna have to be uh, something, some good for reference, I have this ranked as my 36th movie out of 41 I've seen this year. So, above self-reliance, argyle, lift, atlas and Madam Web. But behind Knock, in the Cabin Blue Lock episode, nagi and the Beekeeper.
Speaker 1:
To give you an idea of what is around, Absolute nightmare of a list there I will say if you made it this far, you are probably someone who listens to the podcast weekly. I believe I did make this up by making the international feature episode Ultraman Rising. I don't know if you've seen it.
Speaker 2:
Phil, not yet. I'm very excited to watch it this weekend.
Speaker 1:
Yep. So when we do that episode, I think it is going to make up for this really joke of an episode. And again, we really sat there. I apologize if you made it this far. We really sat there. You should really join our patreon. I'm just gonna do the plug now because we we had a hard time discussing it and we just we have a list. We just couldn't stop thinking about ninjago for some stupid reason that night I tried so hard to throw out other movies and I was unsuccessful. Yeah, so it just was unfortunate really.
Speaker 1:
So we apologize. We are sorry.
Speaker 2:
Again, if you want to listen to some other really great content, we've got it. We have it. It's all there in the Linktree link. In the show notes of this episode, you can find a link to all the rest of our content. The month of July is stacked, so make sure you check out social media as well, and you'll find our episode list, the most important ones being Instagram, tiktok, our growing Discord page, as well as Twitch, as Jordan and I will be returning to Twitch this Thursday night after a break.
Speaker 2:
After the holiday, we will probably be playing more Chain together, but we're open to suggestions and, of course, if you want to support the show, you can do a couple of different things. Like Eric mentioned, you can join the Patreon and get some really great exclusive conversations, like which career would you rather have? Kevin James or David Spade? Maybe you would have rather listened to that instead of listen to an episode about Lego Ninjago. You have the opportunity to do those things, so make sure you check that out. You can also head on over to Apple Podcasts, spotify, leave us a five-star review. Head on over to YouTube and subscribe, and also leave a thumbs up on that page as well. So, other than that, eric, I mean again, you already plugged the Patreon, so now it's up to you to figure out how to close this out, because you always get the last word.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, it's all good. We really appreciate each and every one of you. However, for our patrons, we really appreciate Stefan Breyer and a third patron, t3 Kato. So truly appreciate all three of you for subscribing to our highest tier on Patreon. And, again, we have multiple tiers. We also have a free tier which, if you just want to check clips out in advance so again tomorrow, or I should say we're recording this on Monday it's going to post on Tuesday, release on Wednesday. If you want to check out a two minute clip to decide whether or not you're going to listen to this Ninjago episode, that's free. To just subscribe to our Patriot. All the free stuff is great though the likes, the comments, the shares, the engagements. You guys know the drill. My name is mr eric almighty. That is my co-host, phil the filipino, and, please don't forget, we release new episodes every wednesday on the podcast and we have bonus content like tiktok and twitch, and all you got to do is wait for it. God damn it, phil.
Speaker 2:
So I heard you're looking for a go-to source for entertainment. Wait for it Gaming, wait for it Anime PLUS, ultra. Mr Eric Almighty and Phil the Filipino yeah, they've got you covered and all you got to do is wait for it. This is the Wait For it Podcast.
