PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, psychological*
In contrast to "regular" cartoons, I think it's impossible to make a Lego animation work in any other literary mythos but that of comedy. That said, this movie-- UNITE for short-- is probably the closest a Lego story could come to duplicating a "straight" adventure of Batman and Robin teaming with Superman to fight their mutual foes Joker and Luthor, just like a Silver Age issue of the WORLD'S FINEST comic.
Though some other DC heroes appear near the conclusion, and assorted Bat-foes are scattered throughout the tale, the aforementioned three heroes and two villains provide the main plotline. Luthor, though busy running for President, finds out that Joker has formulated a means of duplicating a Kryptonite-like substance. The evil scientist knows that he can use this substance to fuel his "deconstructor" ray, which makes objects dissolve into constituent parts (a.k.a. "bricks.") Luthor breaks Joker out of Arkham and the two decide to eliminate their mutual foes, while at the same time rigging the election for Luthor's benefit. (Or so Luthor assumes.)
UNITE was the first film to actually use the title "Lego Batman Movie," even though the film given only that title appeared four years later. In my review I noted that Batman (Will Arnett) was played like "Richie Rich as superhero," constantly calling attention to all the toys he could buy with Bruce Wayne's vast wealth. That characterization isn't present here. Instead, Batman is just extremely diffident toward Superman and other heroes, not trusting anyone to render aid in his war against crime. Even the crusader's partner Robin gets short shrift in the praise department, so that the Boy Wonder suffers from an inferiority complex. Naturally, by the movie's end the Gotham Guardian reaches out and brings the Justice Leaguers together to fight the villains' giant Joker robot. As in Silver Age comics, both villains and heroes display a strong ability to think ahead and trip one another up. The voice-work is uniformly good, but Christopher Corey Smith's Joker stands out nicely. Extra points for working in a joke involving the Batcave's giant penny.
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