His life runs to a plan dictated by Lord Business (Will Ferrell), an Orwellian ruler whose desire to keep everyone thinking inside the box has extended to a secret plot to super-glue his subjects in place. A construction worker in Bricksburg, he drinks chainstore coffee, watches dumb network comedy and loves the same hit song as everyone else. Thrilled by a branded film.Įmmet (voiced by Chris Pratt) is an ordinary block. You leave it feeling exhilarated and utterly conflicted.

And a deconstruction of stupid Hollywood. It’s also an attack on corporate mono-culture.

It’s marketing as art, art as commerce, and commerce as fun. The Lego Movie is a $60m (£38m) advert that’s clever, smart and extremely funny. But Leigh’s film rises well above mere pastiche: this is a finely detailed, and wholly alive, portrait of an exceptional human being, rendered with committment and love. It’s become bit of a cliche to describe Leigh’s films in these terms – what with the exaggerated physical characteristics, the ferocious comic tone, and the unabashed assault on social iniquities – there’s no getting away from it with Mr Turner, which timewise lands smack-dab in Dickens’ middle period. Spall’s towering presence in the central role is unquestionably a masterpiece of Dickensian proportions – by turns passionate, mischevious, cerebral and melancholy. This ripe, gamey dialogue is one of the most obviously impressive aspects of Mr Turner and it’s backed up with a whole gallery of tremendous performances. Any apprehension that Mike Leigh’s biopic of Turner will descend into bloodless, well-mannered heritage cinema are well and truly buried with this exchange “Gawd, strewth, that brigand’s still robbing us!” responds his son in Covent Garden cockney, who happens to be the famous painter JMW Turner. “Ultramarine’s gone up to a guinea a bladder!” cries William “Daddy” Turner.

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