A Lego Brickumentary
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''A Lego Brickumentary'' (also known as ''Beyond the Brick: A Lego Brickumentary'') is a 2014 Danish-American
documentary film A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...
directed by Kief Davidson and
Daniel Junge Daniel Junge (born October 7, 1969) is an American documentary filmmaker. On February 26, 2012, he won the Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject) for the film '' Saving Face'', which he co-directed along with Pakistani filmmaker Sha ...
, focused on the Danish construction toy
Lego Lego (, ; ; stylised as LEGO) is a line of plastic construction toys manufactured by the Lego Group, a privately held company based in Billund, Denmark. Lego consists of variously coloured interlocking plastic bricks made of acrylonitri ...
. The film was released on July 31, 2015. The film received mixed reviews from critics, who praised its appeal but criticized the promotional tone of the film. It grossed over $100,000 against a production budget of $1 million, although it fared better in home media sales.


Synopsis

''A Lego Brickumentary'' offers a look at the global appeal of Lego toys.


Cast

*
Jason Bateman Jason Kent Bateman (born January 14, 1969) is an American actor. He is known for his roles as Michael Bluth in the Fox Broadcasting Company, Fox / Netflix sitcom ''Arrested Development'' (2003–2019) and Marty Byrde in the Netflix crime drama s ...
as narrator * Jamie Berard as himself * Alice Finch as herself * Bret Harris as himself * G.W. Krauss as himself * Dan Legoff as himself *
Nathan Sawaya Nathan Sawaya (born July 10, 1973) is an American artist known for creating sculptures and large-scale mosaics using Lego building bricks. Biography Born in Colville, Washington and raised in Veneta, Oregon, Sawaya attended New York Universi ...
as himself * Brian Whitaker as himself * Iain Clifford Heath as himself *
Ed Sheeran Edward Christopher Sheeran ( ; born 17 February 1991) is an English singer-songwriter. Born in Halifax, West Yorkshire, and raised in Framlingham, Suffolk, he began writing songs around the age of eleven. In early 2011, Sheeran independently r ...
as himself *
Trey Parker Randolph Severn "Trey" Parker III (born October 19, 1969) is an American actor, animator, writer, producer, director, and musician. He is best known for co-creating ''South Park'' (1997) and '' The Book of Mormon'' (2011) with his creative part ...
as himself *
Dwight Howard Dwight David Howard II (born December 8, 1985) is an American former professional basketball player. Nicknamed "Superman" for his athletic prowess, he is an NBA champion, eight-time All-Star, eight-time All-NBA Team honoree, five-time All-Defen ...
as himself * David Pagano as himself *
Phil Lord Philip Anderson Lord (born July 12, 1975) and Christopher Robert Miller (born September 23, 1975) are an American filmmaking and acting duo. Their films are known for subversion of genre and detailed visual sensation, spanning various styles of ...
as Writer/Director/Himself * Christopher Miller as Writer/Director/Himself


Release

The film had its premiere at the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival on April 20, and was released in theaters on July 31, 2015.


Reception


Commercial performance

The film grossed $101,531 in theaters against a production budget of $1 million, in addition to $427,757 in domestic DVD sales.


Critical reception

The film received mixed reviews from critics.
Review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews and ratings of products and services, such as films, books, video games, music, software, hardware, or cars. This system then stores the reviews to be used for supporting a website where user ...
website
Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...
reports a 55% rating based on 49 reviews, with an average score of 5.41/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "''A LEGO Brickumentary'' offers a cheerful overview of the popular toy that should satisfy diehard enthusiasts, but its aggressively promotional tone may turn off LEGO agnostics." On
Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...
, the film has a 51 out of 100 rating based on 19 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews. Peter Sobczynski of
RogerEbert.com ''RogerEbert.com'' is an American film review website that archives reviews written by film critic Roger Ebert for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' and also shares other critics' reviews and essays. The website, underwritten by the ''Chicago Sun-Times ...
gave the film two-and-a-half stars out of five. Peter Debruge of ''
Variety Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
'' writes that the film feels like a "glorified DVD extra" for ''
The Lego Movie ''The Lego Movie'' is a 2014 animated adventure comedy film written and directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. Based on the Lego line of construction toys, the film stars the voices of Chris Pratt, Will Ferrell, Elizabeth Banks, Will ...
''. ''Spectrum Culture'' wrote that "Brickumentary is both interesting and informative as well as being fun. There may be no “other side” to this documentary, but it does, indeed, give great depth to the toy, its inception and evolution. It also manages, quite successfully, to never, ever be boring." Jordan Hoffman of the New York '' Daily News'' gave the film one out of five stars, noting "As a movie, it can be as annoying as stepping on a stray LEGO brick with your socks off."


References


External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Lego Brickumentary 2014 films 2014 documentary films Danish documentary films American documentary films Films about toys Films directed by Daniel Junge Brickumentary 2010s English-language films 2010s American films English-language documentary films