[7.0/10] *The Lego Movie 2* offers two good messages to its audience of kids of all ages. The first is that growing up and being more mature doesn't have to mean growing darker and grittier and setting aside the bright and fun. Both Emmet and Lucy face nigh-unstoppable doppelgangers that teach them the lesson in one way or another. And it tracks with Finn, the real life young man playing with these toys, learning the same as he grows older and, as the film winkingly signposts, deals with his subconscious fears of losing his imagination as he grows up.

The second is that what you perceive as someone invading your territory may just be them wanting to collaborate with you, spend time with you, and play with you. The movie features a would-be invasion from the “Sis-Tar System”, a thinly coded version of Finn’s little sister and her toys, which want to envelop Finn’s denizens of the newly-dubbed “Apocalypsburg” into a big royal wedding with sister Bianca’s playthings. It’s also aided by an unexpected romance between Watevra Wa'Nabi, the queen of little sister land and, well, Batman, that shows the unexpected synergy between two seemingly different approaches.

Both ideas are laudable. There’s some irony in a film that shares a corporate family tree with the recent D.C. movies emphasizing that darker and more brooding doesn't necessarily mean more mature, and that there’s fun to be had in the sparkly and whimsical. But it’s a good lesson for kids watching their favorite toys on the screen, and for the adult fans in the audience who might come for the irreverence but stick around for something a shade deeper. And the message of understanding the benefits of collaboration, of not perceiving different takes on the same thing as an affront, but rather an invitation, is a solid aesop for the movie to dispense as well. *The Lego Movie 2*’s heart is squarely in the right place, even if that heart may speak in a baby voice and eventually explode with rose-colored splendor.

But the movie is clunky and a little disjointed when trying to deliver those messages. *The Lego Movie 2* is not a bad film by any stretch of the imagination. It is broadly enjoyable, full of fun references for the grown-ups and silly gags for the kids, and an eminently pleasant way to spend ninety minutes at the theater.

At the same time though, it can’t quite recapture the magic of the first film, and feels more like a colorful theme park ride whose storytelling and genre riffs can’t quite keep up with its aesop ambition. It may simply be that burden of all sequels, where seeing our favorite brick figures build their way out of mayhem with a cast of familiar but comically-skewed faces is old hat by now. And with the past movie’s reveal that the battle between good and evil was a representation of Finn’s relationship with his dad, the jig is up, and the big brother/little sister theme feels a little more obvious this time around.

It’s not that there’s nothing new. The presence of Bianca and her duplo-turned-sparkle denizens/aliens make for a big new ingredient in the film’s milieu. Watevra is a particularly fun creation, shape-shifting and scheming in a way that shows visual panache. And the vague *Mad Max* and outer space riffs give Lord & Miller some amusing new sandboxes to play in.

Still, the film’s story which involves would-be hostages, alien abductions, time travel, and even our heroes seeming to move and function without Finn or Bianca’s intervention, gets too big, too muddled, and too mushy to invest in very deeply, or to support the broader messages *The Lego Movie 2* wants to send. It’s all perfectly enjoyable on a scene-by-scene basis, if not necessarily overwhelming, but the whole is lesser than the sum of its bricks here.

The film is also a bit of a musical, but it’s songs are fairly forgettable until, oddly enough, the credits roll. There are enough reprises of “Everything Is Awesome” in different forms for it to feel nicely familiar. There are a couple of serenades from Watevra about how she’s not evil, and some reverse psychology for Batman, which are cute enough, but not especially memorable. The film’s catchiest charms come from the end credit song, a Lonely Island one-up called “Super Cool” and the self-fulfilling prophecy of a song that promise to get stuck inside your head. Again, none of the tunes in *The Second Part* are bad, but they can’t match the earworm excitement of the last movie’s toe-tapper.

Still, the film packs a murderer’s row of comic voice actors, with most of the same brood returning from the last installment, and the additions of Tiffany Haddish, Richard Ayoade, and Maya Rudolph bringing something new to the mix. That alone, and the irreverent side jokes the movie packs in (including a particularly unlucky banana), are enough to keep you smiling even when you’re not deeply engaged.

*The Lego Movie 2* does offer a handful of twists which, like the last movie, laudably connect to the twin themes of the film. *The Second Part* tries the sequel trick of doing a double dose of what it’s predecessor did in that regard, and it’s not bad. The explanations don’t always track perfectly or organically with the characters and situations pre-twist, but it fits what the movie is going for, and the rougher edges of the plot can be explained by kid logic and imaginative flair.

That, any those famous yellow bricks, are what hold *The Lego Movie 2* together. It’s not quite the shaggy-yet-clockwork storytelling of the film’s predecessor, but the movie offers enough tricks (some new, most old), to keep you entertained until the credits roll. Its intended lessons are good ones, and though not as revelatory or unexpected as the first time around, the Lego Movie franchise’s charms are still charming on a second dose.