After what seemed like an eternity, The LEGO Movie opened in cinemas across Australia today! I just got home from the cinema, making this the third time I’ve watched the movie and I was every bit as thrilled and entertained as the first time. Spoiler warning: Everything about the movie is AWESOME.

Also, if you want to check out some great Australian LEGO sales in April, I’ve written a rundown featuring most big name retailers across the country. You can find the list here.

Like any major animated blockbuster worth its salt, you’ll be sure that LEGO Australia has planned a slew of marketing and merchandising promotions to complement the movie and get parents to spend more at the candy bar. Some of them are really cool, some are as gimmicky as you can get and some are shockingly bad. To help you arrive at a more informed decision of whether you should drive around and hunt down these promotional items, I’ve curated a list of some of the major ones that you should check out.

Village Cinemas

I chose to watch The LEGO Movie at Village Cinemas simply because they had the best promotional gift possible: an actual LEGO polybag.

Here’s the promotional poster via their Facebook page. I settled for the “My Combo” which costs $14, netting you a small popcorn and special plastic cup AND the choice of The Piece of Resistance or Super Secret Enforcer polybag.

The polybags alone are almost worth the price of admission. The Piece of Resistance polybag was previously only available through lego.com after spending $150. The polybags currently sell for $15-20 on eBay, to give you a sense of how much they’re worth. I picked The Piece of Resistance because hey, you can never have too many Pieces of Resistance. You also get one of those tacky plastic cups. I’ll probably use mine to store stationery or stray LEGO pieces.

Unfortunately, I forgot to ask about the cost of the Family Combo where you get a whopping 4 polybags.

Village Cinemas are also running a contest where you stand to win return flights for 4 to Sydney with 1 night’s accommodation AND a tour of Animal Logic‘s where you get to meet the animators and team behind the exquisite CGI of The LEGO Movie. I imagine that you’ll probably end up with more exclusive merchandise on the tour. Details on how you can enter can be found here.

Event Cinemas

Definitely one of the more bizarre promotional items. Event Cinemas is offering a 3d mask (which is apparently just attached to your regular 3d glasses) for kids and adults. There aren’t any Event Cinemas in Victoria so I was unable to find one for myself, but they sure look silly and pointless. These novelty masks probably aren’t worth keeping and might end up in the bin before long.

In case you were wondering what it looks like on an actual human being, wonder no more. (Image from David Campbell’s Twitter)

Yeah, no.

Hoyts

Hoyts have a slightly cooler novelty cup. Actually, it’s considerably cooler and I’m tempted to pick one up for myself. It’s free with any purchase of a LEGO combo. No idea how much it costs as I haven’t been to a Hoyts yet to check it out, but I’ll update when I find out.

If you catch The LEGO Movie at Hoyts between now and 6 April 2014, you’ll also receive a free activity booklet. Other than this grainy picture from their Facebook page, your guess is as good as mine. Could be just a boring coloring book or it could be one of those books with minifigures in them. I’ll try and dig up more information this weekend.

Telstra

While Telstra aren’t technically a cinema (you can buy cinema tickets from them), they’ve got one of the cooler promotions for The LEGO Movie which unfortunately takes the form of a competition.

If you’re a Telstra customer and purchase $10 movie tickets from their site, you’ll automatically be in the running to win one of these really neat prize packs containing tons of awesome swag, especially the Pyjamas Emmet polybag as well as a sticker book (cool), Emmet or Wyldstyle kids (boo) tee, Emmet or Wyldstyle bag (kinda cool) and either Melting Room or Getaway Glider (free LEGO is awesome).

This is currently the only method of getting the Pyjamas Emmet polybag in Australia which is a bit of a letdown because I was looking forward to this polybag the most. Fingers crossed I win the pack!

Myer

Tucked away in their latest catalog is a small competition (ugh, what is it with these random contests) where you could win an afternoon for two with Australia’s very own Ryan Mcnaught or as he is fondly known, The Brickman. All you gotta do to be eligible is to be a Myer One cardholder and purchase any LEGO set from now till the 27th of April to be in the running. I met Ryan at this year’s Brickvention and he’s a pretty swell guy so this is definitely one of the cooler prizes.

Mcdonald’s

McDonald’s is also joining in the fun by offering these colourful lenticular cups with every Happy Meal OR for $2 each. Featuring a major character from the movie on each one, the lenticular effect makes the images change when viewed from different angles. They’re basically real life physical GIFs. 2 cups will be available each week starting with President Business and Uni-Kitty this week. I managed to pick one up to let you guys have a closer look at them.

Pretty cool huh? For $2 a pop they’re not bad and I’ll most likely be collecting the whole set. Not only are they made of decent quality plastic, I can see them coming in handy for storing small LEGO pieces or even coins. They’ve got a microsite on their Happy Meal site. Maccas is also running a competition where you stand to win a trip to Legoland California and have an exclusive session with a Master Builder BUT you gotta be 12 years or younger to qualify. BOO.

That’s it for now. As you can see, we’re pretty spoiled for choice here in Australia for exclusive merchandise. If you had to pick a cinema to watch The LEGO Movie in, go with Village Cinemas. The free polybag trumps all other freebies.