The LEGO Batman Movie

Listen. I love Batman as much as the next guy. Like many high school nerds with a chip on their shoulder, I argued passionately that the darkest Batman stories were his true self, not the goofy camp of the 1960s Adam West series. That being said, is anyone in worse need of a little levity than the Dark Knight? Batman’s gloomy personality finally reached a tipping point with Zack Snyder’s gun-happy take on the character in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. As Jack Nicholson’s Joker said in the 1989 film, this town needs an enema.

It’s a question that has perplexed Batman villains since at least 1989: “Where does he get those wonderful toys?” Finally, we have an answer. The LEGO Store. The one a few blocks from Warner Bros.’ New York offices currently sells at least eight different LEGO Batman sets, all of which appear in various forms in The LEGO Batman Movie. The film is, like The LEGO Movie before it, a feature-length toy commercial — and, like The LEGO Movie before it, The LEGO Batman Movie is far more entertaining than a giant piece of crass commercialism has any right to be.

FINALLY — no, really, for months we’ve been wondering when Warner Bros. might release a full cast list for The LEGO Batman Movie. Although several voice actors had already been announced, like Jenny Slate as Harley Quinn and Billy Dee Williams as Two-Face, there were plenty more that remained a mystery; like, who’s voicing Bane and Scarecrow and Riddler and all those other delightful Bat-villains? And now we finally know.

The self-aware superhero thing seems to be becoming a trend. Last year, Deadpool charmed audiences with his irreverent, R-rated take on the origin story, cursing up a storm and breaking the fourth wall every five minutes. LEGO Batman, possibly the best part of The LEGO Movie, was similar, throwing in jabs now and again to his dark, broody characterization in The Dark Knight Trilogy. The LEGO Batman Movie promises more of the same in this new “Gotham Cribs” clip, which shows LEGO Batman trying really hard not to let everyone know he and LEGO Bruce Wayne are the same person. If he were any more aware of himself, he’d ascend to nirvana.

If you like your toys to be as meta as possible, then you’re definitely going to want to make a little room in your budget for The LEGO Batman Movie LEGO sets. Yes, the LEGO version of the iconic superhero is getting his very own LEGO sets, featuring LEGO Bat-vehicles, LEGO Bat-villains and much more. As we’ve noted before, it’s kind of amazing to see toy sets based on a movie that’s based on a toy that’s based on a superhero.

Will Arnett’s Batman was by far the hilarious standout of The LEGO Movie, and we’re a little less than a month away from seeing his solo movie take off. But it seems another character might be stealing the show from Batman this time: Barbara Gordon, aka Batgirl, is featured in a new TV spot for The LEGO Batman Movie that shows the Dark Knight might have met his match.

2016 is almost over! Hallelujah! With everything that’s happened in the last 12 months, we can’t wait to rip the last page of our 2016 Spider-Man wall calendar and hang up our 2017 Spider-Man wall calendar.

A few weeks ago, I attended a holiday party where Nick Offerman’s ‘Yule Log’ played in the background for the entire evening. As people milled about the living room, passing appetizers and making polite introductions, the wise face of Nick Offerman beamed forth from the television, taking occasional sips from a glass of whisky and listening to the crackling fire. And despite years spent listening to Mannheim Steamroller and Frank Sinatra around the holidays, it was the silence of Nick Offerman’s fake living room that now sounds the most like Christmas to me.

Looks like little LEGO Batman has put his ego aside (well, sort of) in the new poster for The LEGO Batman Movie, which features several famous Bat-villains and a handful of friends — does LEGO Batman actually have friends? Seems like he’d probably view them all as acquaintances that he regards with passive ambivalence, at best. Either way, you can kill a few minutes on this day that is definitely not Friday yet by seeing if you can name all the characters featured on this new poster.

December is officially upon us, and so is year-end list-making season. We’re kicking things off by looking backwards and forwards: By ranking the finest teasers, trailers, and coming attractions of 2016. To qualify, only the trailer had to be released in this calendar year; you’ll see trailers below for movies that haven’t even been released yet and can’t be judged next to the films they represent. That’s as it should be; beyond their function as pieces of advertising, trailers should stand alone, as bite-sized entertainments and even, in a few rare occasions, as works of art. Here are the ten trailers of 2016 (plus a few honorable mentions) that came closest to that lofty ideal.