Entertainment
Chris Pratt’s Surprise Blockbuster Hit Is Now On Netflix
By Jonathan Klotz
| Published
It’s hard to remember now that Chris Pratt is everywhere that he hasn’t always been a movie star. He wasn’t grown in a vat on the Universal lot and emerged as the ultimate generic leading man suitable for superhero franchises (Guardians of the Galaxy), dinosaur wrangling (Jurassic World), and every animated franchise in existence (both Garfield and Super Mario Bros.).
Chris Pratt built his career piece by piece and brick by brick. The Lego Movie, now on Netflix, predates all of those movies, and its surprising success was an adorable Dutch Trojan Horse that led to all of us accidentally letting Pratt into our lives.
No One Expected The Lego Movie To Be This Good
Pratt voices Emmet Brickowoski, a regular guy in Bricksburg who loves nothing more than to follow the instructions and build as he’s told, because everything is awesome when you’re part of a team. All of that is changed forever when he runs across WildStyle (Elizabeth Banks), an outrageous rebel looking for the “Special,” the most powerful Master Builder, to save the world from Lord Business (Will Ferrell). The Lego Movie gets a lot of mileage out of playing with all the tropes and expectations that come from a “Chosen One” story, but the real fun is the sheer amount of cameos, both Lego figures and voice performances.
There are fun gags, including the Spaceman (Charlie Day) coming complete with broken pieces, the evil commander of the Super Secret Police (Liam Neeson) turning his head around to alternate between Good Cop and Bad Cop. Morgan Freeman, voicing the Blind Wizard, became so annoyed at the bizarre lines of dialogue that his adlib, “Alright, we gotta write all that down cause I’m not gonna remember any of it, but here we go,” was left in the film. Lego Batman voiced by Will Forte steals every single scene he’s in, justifying the existence of The Lego Batman Movie. It feels like every minute there’s a new gag, a one-liner, or a random cameo.
Everything Is Awesome When You’re Chris Pratt
The Lego Movie was written and directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, forever credited afterwards as “The guys who wrote The Lego Movie.” It’s their offbeat sense of humor and willingness to beat jokes into the ground (Emmet falling, Princess Unikitty) that drives the movie’s relentless comedy engine. By the end of its theatrical run, the movie no one thought would be a hit earned $470 million, launched a franchise, and gave the entire Lego brand a shot in the arm.
It’s no wonder that Chris Pratt’s 2014, which also included Guardians of the Galaxy, shot him to the top of Hollywood’s casting sheets. 12 years later, there’s no end in sight to his media dominance, which, through The Terminal List and The Electric State, he’s even expanded to streaming originals. If we hadn’t all laughed with The Lego Movie maybe we could have been spared.
Pratt has had an amazing series of franchise hits but none have surprised audiences quite like The Lego Movie. Crafting a hilarious cinematic universe around the brick toy took everyone by surprise, and even a decade later, it still sounds implausible. If you haven’t given it a chance, it’s now on Netflix, and there’s no reason anyone, old or young, to fire it up and start laughing at one of the best jokes-per-minute ratios of the last 12 years.