Lego Batman: The Movie - DC Superheroes Unite Review

Holy Interlocking Bricks Batman!

There's a brand new family film hitting the shops today

Lego Batman: The Movie - DC Superheroes Unite

 We were incredibly lucky and were asked to review the film and give our opinion before it's general release, so we put the word out and invited a few friends to watch it with us....fortunately they didn't all require a seat!

Naturally there was a special guest, who was shuffled into prime position before we started the movie...

You think I'm kidding - but my 5 year old was adamant they all stayed there and watched it through!

As soon as the movie started it was very familiar. We've played the Lego: Batman games several times through and cut scenes from the games are incorporated into the film.

The storyline features The Joker and his escape from Arkham Asylum with assistance from Lex Luther. They try to get Lex elected into office and Batman teams up with the other DC Superheroes to thwart their plans.

It's a story simple enough for children to follow and interesting enough to hold the attention of their parents. The fact that the story and cut scenes were familiar to us was great for our 3 and 5 year olds, who yelled out when they recognised what was about to happen.

As ever the quality is fantastic and the film is full of funny asides and slapstick moments. Batman is of course dashing and intelligent and Robin is portrayed as the slightly immature daft one, who comes good mainly accidentally ~ a great example of this is towards the beginning of the film when he's falling into the sea on his bike and swiftly dismantles it and makes himself a boat just in time before he hits the water.

It's a bit of a cheat that it is based on cut scenes from the games, but then they were brilliantly done and that familiarity gives it a special interest and is brilliant for younger children especially. My 5 year old announced it was 'the best film ever' and has wanted to watch it whenever we've been sitting in the living room.

The movie has some brilliant extras, amongst them a short film 'Building Batman' ~ where children visit the studio and get to work with the Lego and learn about the filming techniques used to build the scenery. There are also the winning short films from the Lego DC Universe Super Heroes video contest, which are all superb and short stories in their own right.

Lego Batman: The Movie - DC Superheroes Unite is a full 68 minute movie which is rated PG (contains mild fantasy violence and threat). It will be available exclusively in Tesco from today and the DVD costs £5, the Blu Ray is £7 with a Clark Kent minifigure that you can't get anywhere else. You can follow the movie online following the hashtag #LEGOBatfilm and if you fancy having a play with the characters then there is a great Lego DC Universe site.

I give it a 5/5 because it's such excellent value for money, you can't get much for a fiver these days and this will be watched many, many (hundreds of) times. It's funny and captivating and actually it encourages children to stop watching the TV and go and make something - we've had all the Lego out in our house today. All those minifigures need some sort of vehicle apparently....I can see what I'll be doing tomorrow...

We were sent a copy of the DVD for review