Playmobil: The Movie is a desperate attempt to be in the vein of The Lego Movie series, but it just has all of the imagination surgically removed and a message that feels surgically forced.
It stars Ana Taylor-Joy from Split and Glass as Marla and Gabriel Bateman as her younger brother, Charlie. As the movie starts, Marla has dreams of traveling around the world and having a series of adventures. That all comes to a grinding halt after both of their parents are killed in a car accident.
Now Marla has to take care of both of them and basically Charlie thinks he and his sister have no fun anymore. One night, Charlie sneaks out of the house and goes to a magical toy store. Marla tries to stop him and just as she does, they’re both magically transported to the Playmobil universe.
Marla is now an animated version of herself while Charlie is now a Viking. They’re dropped right into the middle of a battle that looks like it would be a kid-friendly version of Game of Thrones.
Charlie is now kidnapped and taken to the Roman Empire world while Marla and a food truck driver named Del (Jim Gaffigan) race to save him from the evil Emperor Maximus (Adam Lambert). Somewhere I’m thinking Russell Crowe is not entertained.
They also encounter a suave, debonair spy named Rex Dasher (Daniel Radcliffe). Rex is darn near infallible at getting in and out of any situation he’s in and that’s good news for Marla and Del.
The Playmobil toys probably have a huge following, but as a movie, it gets bogged down by having clunky animation, a bland story, and voice work that seems to be just going through the motions. Even Kenan Thompson as a pirate and Meghan Trainor as a fairy godmother are wasted and not given anything memorable to do.
I think kids would have more excitement playing with actual Playmobil toys than seeing this movie.
Grade: C-
(Rated PG for action/peril and some language.)
