The Plot

The life and musical career of unique superstar Pharrell Williams is retold through interviews with his family, famous collaborators and the music mogul himself; all whimsically animated as a LEGO movie.

The Good

Pharrell Williams has had a uniquely impressive impact on music and pop culture which is truly worthy of being celebrated. This brightly coloured and mostly joyous film does a great job of reminding audiences of the seemingly never ending array of iconic songs he has crafted as both a genre redefining producer and a multi-talented performer. Retold in his own soft spoken words and contributions from so many of the global musical superstars that have worked alongside him, this is a comprehensive documentation of both his life story and musical genius.

The admittedly unexpected decision to make this otherwise by the numbers talking heads music documentary into an animated LEGO experience, does prove undoubtedly effective in making the film both visually distinctive and much more palatable for wider audiences than just hard-core fans of Pharrell and musical history.

Pharrell’s jaunty and joyful music clearly suits cartoonish visuals perfectly, as proved by the phenomenal success of his Despicable Me soundtracks. In that sense converting this film from the normal compilation of archive footage and interviews into something far more fluidly expressive and visually playful does work very effectively. The films is at its best when it takes more fantastical flights, whimsically reimagining ‘beats’ as glowing stacks of bouncing LEGO blocks or giving life to some of Pharrell’s inner imaging’s.

While the film is obviously mostly sanitised, it is still sincere and at times genuinely reflective. It also manages to mostly avoid coming across as shamelessly self-aggrandizing. It’s obviously a challenge to have Pharrell and his collaborators talk about his journey and musical achievements at length without veering too far into endless praise and self-importance. Thankfully unlike so many similar self-made musical autobiographies the film doesn’t feel obnoxiously boastful or shamelessly rose tinted.

The Bad

Pharrell and the film itself is swift to explain the decision to turn this documentary into an animated LEGO movie as purely an act of Pharrell’s whimsical artistic expression, necessary to allow his colourful vision to be brought to life more effectively on screen. Despite this it’s still honestly difficult to ignore all the implicit commercial motivations in effectively disguising a typical talking heads musical biopic as something far more palatable for younger audiences.

It’s easy to cynically assume that marketing this film as another ‘LEGO movie’ is little more than a carefully calculated brand partnership made in the pursuit of the typically lucrative box office of family cinema trips.

Since generations of preteens already know Pharrell best for his toe tapping soundtracks to the unending Despicable Me franchise it’s easy to imagine why the studio, LEGO and Pharrell himself would be so enthusiastic about pitching his life story at an unusually young demographic.

Unfortunately those children will likely be far less captivated by mostly watching Jay Z and a long list of hip hop icons casually reminisce about Pharrell’s trials and tribulations in the studio churning out hit singles.

While adult fans can certainely enjoy the palatable novelty of the film’s genuinely joyous animated aesthetics, in reality the film never fully commits to being sincerely aimed at a truly childish audience.

The film easily could have simply used more extended musical sequences to loosely reimagine Pharrell’s life story and impressive back catalogue in child friendly ways. Instead the film simply slips a convenient animated veneer on an otherwise typically adult focused documentary. That feels especially true when the film wallows in the cliché pressures of superstardom and very briefly veers into sombre political territory during its later stages.

To that extent the film’s carefully crafted two minute trailer borders close to false advertising in effectively tricking armies of young Minions fans into demanding a family cinema outing to see ‘the LEGO musical movie’.

The Ugly Truth

While the film is a colourful celebration of Pharrell Williams unique pop culture impact and presents an effective summary of his remarkable musical output, it’s still difficult to shake a slight confusion about whether the decision to make and market this as a ‘LEGO movie’ is wonderfully inspired or merely a misguided effort to conveniently capitalise on younger fans for a much bigger Box office haul.

Parents of young children should in particular probably be warned that the film is not fully suited for entertaining a toddler for 90 minutes. This isn’t The Lego Movie 3, it’s a standard issue VH1 behind the music style documentary with an animation filter turned on.