Based on the hugely successful Ninjago toys, The film follows Lloyd, the son of the evil Garmadon, who is also a member of a elite group of teenage ninjas (think Power Rangers style) with powerful robots (again this has Power Rangers all over it) who swear to defeat Garmadon and his odd array of Sealife Minions. In an effort to defeat his father Lloyd attempts to use the Ultimate Weapon Meowthra (a real life cat) on him only for it to back fire. Lloyd and his friends must now travel to find the Ultimate Ultimate Weapon before Meowthra destroys Ninjago.
After the amazing Lego Batman film earlier in the year, Ninjago always had a big job on its hands, something it fails to live up to. What we get is a badly paced, sloppy film with a boring script and a few laughs, most of which appear in the trailer. The film turns more into a coming of age, family drama between Lloyd and Garmadon with a little bit of action added in to fill in the gaps. It focuses more on the life lessons than what we are all there to see, and that is Ninja action. You could have gone down so many other routes with the story, delving into the other members of the team other than Lloyds daddy issues. The film felt long, with the story feeling bogged down throughout the majority of it.
There are a handful of redeeming moments. I loved the Meowthra addition, it trough in sme belly laughs in a Sharknado kind of a way ad there were some funny moments from the Garmadon character, but as mentioned before alot of the funny moments are wasted in the trailer leaving the moments they come a little less amusing.
The kids will no doubt like this but they will not like this in the way the probably liked The Lego Batman Movie or the original Lego Movie. For me? I struggled throughout to find this entertaining enough to keep my attention, and that was a shame.