Is ‘The Lego Movie’ Okay for Kids?

The LEGO Movie was released on February 7^th, and this family-friendly movie has been praised by critics and viewers alike. If you are thinking of bringing your children to the movie but have some questions first, hopefully this post can help. Please let us know if you have any questions.

Movie Details:

Rating: PG

Director: Phil Lord and Christopher Miller

Starring: Will Ferrell, Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Banks, Morgan Freeman, Liam Neeson

Time: 1 Hour and 40 Minutes – 100 minutes

Is there any foul language?

No. This movie is for kids and the writers knew that. To give you an idea of how innocent the language is, at one point a character says ‘Oh my G-O-S-H.’ The worst word in the movie is darn or dang, depending on which you consider to be worse. For me it’s darn.

While there isn’t too much profanity, the main character of the film is sometimes degraded for not living up to the standards that were expected of him. Characters will call him names and remind him that he’s ‘useless’ or ‘disappointing’ a handful of times throughout the movie.

Is the movie violent?

There are fight scenes in the movie but they are all rendered in LEGOs. There are guns, lasers, and explosions, but there is never any blood or anything graphic. Having said that, one character is ‘killed,’ and his head pops off. (Writing that sounded bad, but remember they are LEGOs). The character continues to talk for a little afterwards, and the scene is more comical than traumatizing.

There is one character, Good Cop/Bad Cop, who has the ability to turn his head to switch between his two personalities. There is a scene where the ‘good cop’ is considered to be too soft and needs to be ‘removed.’ This is done by applying nail polish remover to the face. Again this sounds bad, but it’s done in a way that is humorous. In this same scene we are introduced to the ‘Kra–Gl-e’ (Kragle), which is a gel that ‘freezes’ LEGO figures where they stand (Think Mr. Freeze’s freeze gun). To punish Good Cop/Bad Cop we first see the gel used against his parents. This scene, while again is done in a humorous way, would be the most traumatizing for a toddler.

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Is the movie educational?

The movie is more motivational than educational. The purpose of the movie is to remind people to be themselves—that it doesn’t matter if someone thinks you’re special or not, because in reality everyone is special.  It also reminds us that we don’t need to do what everyone else is doing and just ‘follow the instructions,’ but be who we want to be and build what we want to build—even if it is just a double decker couch.

The movie is for parents as much as it is for children. There were a lot of families in the theater but there were a also handful of couples with no kids, and rightly so. This movie reminds adults to be a kid every once in a while and to just play. LEGOs are a toy that can be used to build sky scrapers, a city block, or the layout for a house, BUT they can also be used to build a submarine that has a fish tail with rocket boosters and spider web missiles. It’s a healthy reminder to just play and have fun sometimes.

WARNING!

There is a song in the movie and it will get stuck in your head.