Just when you thought it was safe to go back in th🦂e auditorium... along comes an earworm even deadlier than Everything is Awesome. Behold Catchy Song, which (repeatedly) insists: "This song’s gonna get stuck inside your heaaaaad..." Yes. Yes, it does. Question is, does the film follow suit? 

If not quite unforgettable, The Lego Movie 2 leaves the memory of a good time. It’s another fast, smar🀅t, block-buster, constructed with enou🌠gh cheek (the meta gags don’t stop when the credits roll), and charm (textured, tactile CG animation that feels hand-crafted) for you to park the fact that it’s a wall-to-wall, wallet-seeking toy ad. Trouble is, as the fourth Lego-branded movie in five years, it feels a little, well, assembly line. 

For one thing, there’s a very dark grey elephant in the room: Batman. A scene-stealer in 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Lego Movie, then star of his own standalone, the Daft Knight (voiced again by Will Arnett) isn’t unwelcome, but his familiar schtick is in danger of coming un-stuck; it’s a shame that director Mike Mitchell (Trolls) doesn’t inch the spotlight towar꧂ds other DC heroes. At least the plot ventures to new pastures – smash-happy Duplo invaders have turned Bricksburg into a dust-choked dump. 

Into this Mad Max-esque mess steps General Mayhem (Stephanie Beatriz), who drags Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks) off to the Systar System; cue a rescue attempt by the blindly upbeat Emmet (Chris Pratt). The good news is that, far from being reduced to damsel in distress, the ninja-cool Wyldstyle is even more of a co-tagonist this time round, even in the face of the film’s le🐼ad doubling down as Emmett’s new bud෴ Rex Dangervest, who’s an utter Pratt. 

The scripဣt (co-penned by The Lego Movie directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller) strives to make this not only a galactic journey but an emoti🎉onal one, exploring key characters’ true colours. Yet as the story starts to encroach on Toy Story-sequel territory, it doesn’t so much pull the heartstrings as drag the pace. What’s more, new (mini)figures like Mayhem and Tiffany Haddish’s Queen Watevra Wa-Nabi start to seem short-changed. And as for poor old Unikitty (Alison Brie), you almost want to pin up a ‘missing’ poster. 

Still, there is awesome-ness here. The sci-fi settings – dystopian grit-scape𝓀, rainbow-coloured cosmos – are dazzlers; the satire is playful not snarky; and as you’d expect, several unexpected cameos. It doesn’t sweat too hard to appease both kids and adults – the latter’s pain much felt in a scene you might describe as product mis-placement.

For more hotly anticipated films, check out our list of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming movies you don't want to miss - and while you're at it, why not take a look at the films we thought were the best movies of 2018?

• Release date: February 8, 2019
• Certificate: PG 
• Running time: 106 mins