The LEGO Batman Movie Review

The LEGO Batman Movie (2017) 

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Written by: Seth Grahame-Smith and Chris McKenna & Erik Sommers and Jared Stern & John Whittington (screenplay), Seth Grahame-Smith (story by), Bob Kane & Bill Finger (Batman created by), Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster (Superman created by), William Moulton Marston (Wonder Woman created by)
Directed by: Chris McKay
Starring:  Will Arnett, Michael Cera, Rosario Dawson, Ralph Fiennes, Zach Galifianakis, Jason Mantzoukas, Conan O'Brien, Zoë Kravitz
Rated: PG

My rating is simple, Watch It, It Depends, Skip it. Read my previous movie reviews!

Plot
Batman vows to solely vanquish the Joker once and for all, but ends up adopting a son in the process and learning a little bit about family.

Verdict
With an incredibly clever script, it's fully entertaining for kids, but meticulously crafted to entertain adults. The script exploits the common Batman and Joker foibles, breaking down who Batman is and his character flaws. The movie is insightful, but always entertaining. It's rare for a movie to work so effectively on multiple levels. The LEGO Batman Movie does it effortlessly.
Watch it.

Review
This spinoff from The Lego Movie (2014) is delightfully self aware, presenting a Batman with a huge ego. Batman prefers to be alone and that is a big part of the plot when he's forced to work with Barbara Gordon when it's pointed out that Batman must be bad at his job since he's never caught the Joker. Batman vows to vanquish Joker once and for all, but a faux romantic plot is thrown in with the Joker just wanting Batman to admit there mutual hate.

It gets to the core of and exploits Batman's tendencies. Batman wants to avoid a family structure because of what happened to his family, but he accidentally adopts Robin. You understand Robin's hero worship of Batman and feel bad for the kid when Batman deliberately puts Robin in harm's way. Robin's suit was a reggae outfit Batman once used, hence the 'R'.

It's irreverent, befitting an animated feature, but the script is impressive. This has plenty of pop culture references without direct mentions, daleks from Doctor Who and Jurassic Park velociraptors to name a couple. There's even a reference to the terrible '80s movie Gymkata..
Even if you take away these references the conclusion is a Chekov's gun that encapsulate everything this movie does. It manages to be heartfelt, imaginative, and humorous while playfully criticizing Batman. This might just be the best Batman movie.