One of the most publicized developments in cinema as of late is how business properties are taken on and adapted into movies. On one hand this is tied to the much detested status quo of the Hollywood studio system, forsaking creativity and originality for remakes and adaptations. After all, existing products with a built-in audience will surely be more lucrative than a new property. That criticism of Hollywood has been semi-overblown, at least insofar as plenty of original pictures get substantial financing. Elysium and Oblivion are two big sci-fi tent poles, and both came from the minds of the director and the director alone. Still, Leonardo DiCaprio has touched on the current studio climate while he's made the press rounds for The Wolf of Wall Street, lamenting how the studio system of 2013 never would have financed The Aviator or Blood diamond. But, interestingly, the more studios reach into the ether for existing properties to make into movies, the more filmmakers are challenged to make them work as cinema. Occasionally, they dig up gold. This was never truer than with David Fincher's The Social Network, which turned the "Facebook movie" into a Citizen Kane like fable on our collective lost humanity. So what can a film about a bunch of plastic bricks say about society? As it turns out, a lot. The Lego Movie works.

In keeping with the recent trend on hyper realism, filmmakers obtrusively force innately unreal products into a real environment. As much as the intended effect is to cause audience investment, the result is a lack of self-awareness, and worse, a lack of measured cohesion in the work. Sure, Transformers is a hugely successful franchise in box office terms, but it’s undeniably silly to see oversized and over-designed robots bouncing about Chicago. Instead, The Lego Movie embraces its status as a film adaptation of a product line, and even more refreshing is that it itself is a product. Instantly, viewers are in on the joke. For that reason, giving a routine brief summary of the plot risks being counter-intuitive. This is a richly drawn metafiction that teems with a winking self-awareness. But I’ll try to anyway. The plot begins with an ordinary construction worker whose life is so automated his morning routine needs an instruction book just as much as the skyscrapers he has helped build. His name is Emmet. And, as adventure stories often do, the plot is kicked off when he meets a mysterious and alluring girl. He becomes embroiled in plot to save the world from the evil corporateer, “Mr. Business.”

Mr. Business is played to hilarious effect by Will Ferrell, giving a performance comparable to his sometimes forgotten turn in Zoolander. The similarity is both in villainous flamboyance and in vocal inflection, and he makes an excellent villain. Parks and Recreation star Chris Pratt gives the main character a hilarious naivety that makes a character whose ignorance could have been grating an endearing trait. Emmet is suitably lovable, and a successful proxy for every type of heroic hero in the book. His journey isn’t original, but nothing in this film is. In fact, that’s sort of the point—more on that later. The whole voice cast is excellent (brief shout out for Will Arnett giving a predictably hilarious performance as Batman) and gives plastic characters with only a handful of facial expressions a wealth of emotion. We care about them, their relationships, and their outcome. Of course, for young kids, they’ll easily connect to the narrative since ultimately that’s what they’re already been doing at home. They take these plastic figures and invent stories with them, so as the film does this they’ll feel part of the story.