LEGOZ

This review contains no spoilers.

Here's a little question for you readers: what makes a good movie? Is it the music selection which goes with the events of the film almost flawlessly? Or maybe it is the plot that is so damn effective. Perhaps it is the high quality character development or the slick animations... Well, in order for a movie to be considered great, it has to have all of these qualities to some extent or another, and MORE. LEGOZ only shines in two of these categories: the animations and the general concept of the movie, and frankly, that's not good enough.

But fair play to Gallagher, the animations of LEGOZ really do shine, certainly one of the best movies to show this in the Summer Film Festival 2004. The hand-made characters were constructed and moved very fluently, and it is obvious that this was the main focus of this very brief film. Each lego character walked almost as accurately as lego men would if living pieces existed. And another bright point about LEGOZ is the concept of it all. Unless you never owned or played with them for whatever reason, why wouldn't it appeal to you to watch a movie about lego men? Unfortunately, despite the brilliant hand-made characters, the idea crumbled down to what is a disappointing two or three minutes.

I'll be honest: I didn't understand most of what went on during LEGOZ. Call me dumb, but all I got wazs a couple of random lego men, although wonderfully animated, defending against army men. Was there meant to be more?! Here, a great idea (perhaps not original, but definitely with a hell of a lot of potential) has not been put to its full use, and I really can't think of a classic that I loved which wasted a delightful concept. Oh well, that's LEGOZ screwed already! Of course, with a movie this short, you can only really call this an animation showdown, displaying Dylan's talented animating abilities, but with that comes the fact that there isn't anything else to talk about or admire. Character development is non-existent, I can't really comment on a couple minutes of music properly, and there is obviously no plot to discuss. I'm not saying LEGOZ needs to shine in all these departments, but something felt lacking, and its very, very short runtime didn't help one bit.

Just imagine if this concept was backed with a few characters with actual names and with personalities. Add a decent plot with good story development and with some insight into the characters themselves. Just imagine that for a moment. This could have been a killer, but this was released instead: a few minutes worth of good animations. The amount of potential is staggeringly high, and I really cannot believe that Gallagher has released it like this. I imagine laziness got in the way, add the possible fact that he only wanted to show off his animation skills, but still! It is just like Mario Saga. That wasn't that long too, like LEGOZ. That lacked story development, like LEGOZ. That lacked character personalities, like LEGOZ. And interestingly enough, that ALSO had some extremely impressive hand-made characters! The result? It was disappointing, like LEGOZ!

Even though it felt very incomplete, LEGOZ at least reminds us that Gallagher is still a gifted animator, and I certainly look forward to Mario Saga 2. But LEGOZ could have been so much more, as the director did not use this interesting concept to its full potential. With more patience and hard work, and extending this by a good ten minutes or so, along with some impressive plot development, LEGOZ could have been one of the stars of this Summer's Film Festival. The director obviously thought working on this was time-consuming, and I can understand this, but ultimately I was let down by LEGOZ. I am sure Mario Saga 2 won't be like this.

Score: 62/100