Joker unlocks Lego Batman’s deepest, darkest secret — and it’s not what you’d expect

REVIEW: The dark secret behind The Caped Crusader’s long-term obsession with his arch enemy The Joker is revealed in The Lego Batman Movie.

THE LEGO BATMAN MOVIE

Four stars

Director Chris McKay

Starring Will Arnett, Rosario Dawson, Michael Cera

Rating PG

Running time 104 minutes

Verdict Expertly constructed

THINK Jerry Maguire directed by Michael Mann with lots of Batman jokes.

That was Chris McKay’s studio pitch for his hotly-anticipated Lego Movie sequel.

The director didn’t mention his psychoanalytic interpretation of The Caped Crusader’s emotional issues — probably because executives’ attention spans are short and financiers tend to be skittish.

Freed from the “naturalistic” constraints of recent live action versions, The Lego Batman Movie might be described as a meta-superhero fantasy (the characters, after all, are quite literally action figures).

Barbara Gordon (Rosario Dawson) and Batman (Will Arnett) in a scene from the film. Picture: Warner Bros.

The screenplay boasts more in-jokes than a US Presidential roast.

And the filmmakers have liberated a cacophonous army of super villains and arch enemies — Clayface, Penguin, Great White Shark, Poison Ivy, King Kong and Voldemort amongst them — for the final, epic action sequence.

But it’s Lego Batman’s personal demons that give the film its emotional core.

McKay and his team of writers (Seth Grahame-Smith gets the story credit) zero in on the psychological pathology of the character’s behaviour.

Superheroes tend to be loners and outsiders — it comes with the territory. But in this version, The Dark Knight (Will Arnett) is an emotionally repressed, socially awkward, self-absorbed control freak.

He also has a deep-seated fear of intimacy — caused by the premature death of his parents, Thomas and Martha Wayne (whose murder he witnessed as a child).

Bruce Wayne barely makes an appearance in The Lego Batman Movie — the crime fighter has become so enamoured of the alternative persona he has constructed for himself, he even wears his mask around the house.

The Joker (Zach Galifianakis) has a few nasty surprises up his sleeve. Picture: Warner Bros.

Once he’s parked the Batmobile for the night, Batman’s social life consists of watching old romantic comedies, alone, in his state-of-the-art home entertainment theatre. (Jerry Maguire is a favourite.)

His world is turned upside down when honey-voiced Barbara Gordon (Rosario Dawson) takes over the police commissioner’s job from her father Jim.

Unlike the former police chief, Barbara doesn’t actually need Batman — when it comes to fighting bad guys, she’s quicker, smarter and more agile. But she humours him — clearly because of their shared history/chemistry.

Further challenging the status quo is the eager-to-please orphan Dick Grayson (Michael Cera) that Bruce Wayne unwittingly adopts — paving the way for a stream of Robin jokes.

Batman teaches Robin (Michael Cera) the ropes. Picture: Warner Bros.

The Lego Batman Movie is a fairly classic hero’s journey. In this instance, the lesson Batman must learn is how to get along with others.

You know he’s succeeded when he acknowledges that he needs The Joker as much as The Joker needs him.

His acceptance of his faithful butler Alfred (Ralph Fiennes) as a father figure completes the process.

Playful, clever, jam-packed with pop culture references, The Lego Batman Movie has clearly been made by someone who is intimately acquainted with his iconic subject.

Despite a cast of thousands and the madcap action adventure pace ... the film’s ending just, well, clicks.

The Batman Lego Movie opens on Thursday (March 30)

Originally published as Joker unlocks Lego Batman’s deepest, darkest secret — and it’s not what you’d expect