The Lego Batman Movie

Chris McKay’s 2017 film follows a Batman who insists on working alone and the boy he adopts by accident. The Australian studio Animal Logic made the animation. It is not stop motion but fully digital animation imitating it. The studio’s rule was that everything on screen could be built for real on a miniature set. Movement comes from replacing parts, not bending them: when an arm bends, digital bricks are swapped for others. A library of 3,180 distinct brick types built 451 characters, and every brick carries an identifier that looks up scratch, thumbprint and dent maps, so even the grime is authored. McKay asked the animators to loosen the Lego rules a little and push the gestures. Ralph Fiennes voices Alfred; though he played Voldemort on screen, the Voldemort here is voiced by Eddie Izzard. It took 312,336,671 dollars worldwide on a United States opening of 53,003,468 dollars. Even so it was not among the five Animated Feature Film nominees at the 2018 Academy Awards, where Coco won. A good fit if you come in knowing most jokes point at Batman screen versions from the 1940s serials onward, and that recognising them roughly doubles the film. Not for you if you want the action to carry weight; the figures cannot deform, so every fight is cut around rigid bodies.