The Lego Movie
Director: Phil Lord, Christopher Miller

Cast: Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Banks, Liam Neeson, Morgan Freeman, Will Arnett

Every once in a while a film will come along that will take you completely by surprise. Your expectation level may be so low or non-existent that when you finally do get around to going to the cinema, it's just a wonderful experience because of how good the film actually is; that's the Lego Movie in pretty much one paragraph.

Although the project had been in development since 2008, it went through quite a few production stages and name changes before the voice work got underway. Chris Pratt and Elizabeth Banks were cast in the main roles just at the beginning of 2012 with a couple of trailers being released towards the end of last year and the beginning of this year to create a bit of hype. However, it really wasn't until the initial reviews came out that people began to really begin to take the Lego Movie seriously.

The cleverest films for kids work on many levels, entertaining children with good action sequences while still giving enough nods to old classics and good jokes to keep the adults entertained. This is something that the Lego Movie could provide a masterclass for; this might arguably one of the films of the year.

The Lego Movie story begins with a dramatic face-off; a powerful wizard named Vitruvius attempts to protect the Lego world from an evil villain, Lord Business who wishes to attain a super weapon, the Kragle and destroy the world. Lord Business manages to defeat the wizard but before he disappears, he tells the story of a great prophecy where a "Special" one will find the "Piece of Resistance" and manage to defeat the evil lord.

Fast forward a few years later and Emmet Brickowski manages to stumble upon the Piece of Resistance. Unfortunately, he gets there just before what will become his greatest ally, the effortlessly brilliant Wyldstyle. Wyldstyle tells Emmet the prophecy and claims that he is the Special One, the Master Builder who will save the universe. Of course, Emmet has always followed all of the rules but he may need to break a few to fulfill his destiny.

The plot for the Lego Movie is just a device for all the fun however, and that fun exists in vast quantities and then some. The script is arguably one of the funniest to make it to the big screen recently with plenty of brilliant in-jokes, cracker one-liners and character development that a lot of comedies would actually die for; this IS the funniest film of this year. You may not need to watch anything else.

On top of that, the cast is just absolutely brilliant, there is no character who is not entertaining or funny in some way or another. Chris Pratt of Parks and Recreation fame among others, is brilliant as the lead Emmet, delivering his one-liners expertly and generally just being the clueless one of the bunch. Morgan Freeman as Vitruvius is perfect, Elizabeth Banks as Wyldstyle is adorable but the real star of the entire production is Liam Neeson who plays the Good Cop/Bad Cop so well he may have actually been born to just provide voice-over work for cartoons if we didn't know him as the great "action" star.

However, despite all the laughs, and there are a lot of them, the Lego Movie is surprisingly touching as well. Without giving too much away, if you are a Lego fan you will remember all those moments when you were younger and how much fun you had with your imagination.

This is a winner all round, for both adults and children. I can't say enough good things, I may have said enough already.

Her

Director: Spike Jonze

Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Scarlett Johansson, Rooney Mara, Amy Adams, Olivia Wilde

Cast your mind back to 2008 and the frighteningly apt film that was Wall-E, a robot who is left on an abandoned planet Earth as a waste-collecting worker. The people of Earth had no need for actual earth anymore, they were living aboard a space station out in the middle of the nowhere with no plan to return. Although the film was extremely touching, there was something all too realistic about human beings living in chairs, talking to their personalised computers, never exercising, never interacting with anyone else. Was this the future? And if it is, is that really what we want from technology?

These are the questions that Her has tried to raise and answers depressingly with a film that depicts a loss of humanity in a world dominated by machines. The idea first came to Spike Jonze about ten years previous when he read an article that explained instant messages with artificial intelligence. With our over-dependence on machines continuing at a frightening rate, wasn't it always the next step to wonder about human interaction and human relationships? If an operating system sounds like a human and develops a personality, is there any need for human contact in the future?

This is what makes Her so spellbinding, but also absolutely petrifying at the same time, almost becoming the warning signs for what could be the Terminator plot.

Joaquin Phoenix plays Theodore Twombly, a writer who works for a website that writes beautiful handwritten letters, as humanity has evidently lost the ability to write emotions down on paper. He is lonely, suffering heartbreak following a difficult divorce and unable to move on with other relationships. Theodore lives an isolated life, at the most interacting with friends who constantly nag him for not seeing them and developing a strong, if emotionless relationship, with his phone.

However, everything changes when Theodore decides to invest in an operating system that possesses the height of artificial intelligence. In fact, Samantha, as the machine is named, is evolving at a constant rate and becoming human in some ways with feelings, thoughts and even plans for the future, but of course, without a body. With the perfect operating system that will understand his every need and is made to suit his requirements, it isn't long before Theodore realises that he is falling in love with Samantha and vice versa.

Her is brilliant and yet terrifying, almost in equal measure. The questions and discussions it raises will certainly make you stop and think about how we are interacting with each other, with our machines and with each other through our machines. It took Spike Jonze five months to write a script that is perhaps one of the most modern and clever films you will see appear over the next few years. In fact, many may look back at Her in a few years as being an indicator of how we now see our future.

Phoenix is astonishing as Theordore, so painfully alone that it is difficult to watch at times but a performance that makes it completely easy to comprehend how easy it was to move on with machine as opposed to a human being; he is so heartbroken from the break-up of his marriage that he is almost completely incapable of social contact, much less romantic contact. For Theodore, it seems less painful with less consequences to love an operating system.

Scarlett Johansson, although just a voice through the entire film, is really amazing. In fact, it might be difficult to believe that she may have delivered one of her best performances without ever setting foot in front of the camera. Of course, Rooney Mara is Rooney Mara. Brilliant as always.

It has to be said that at times there is something completely uncomfortable about watching Her, something that is accelerated by the constant spurts of colour across the film, this is no future that looks cold, it almost looks welcoming, like it may be too easy to be comfortable there and yet, there is no emotion.

Let it sit for a while before you really decide how you feel; you will certainly remember this one.