The movie starts with Bruce Wayne (Troy Baker) and Lex Luthor (Clancy Brown) competing for Gotham's Man of the Year award, but plans change just after Bruce takes the title because The Joker and his goons crash the party. Thanks to Batman's toys, particularly the ones made of shiny black LEGO bricks, the maniacal criminal's rampage is stopped and he is sent to Arkham.
Lex decides not to let his time in Gotham go to waste as he works on a plan that involves using The Joker's laughing gas to win the Presidential election he is running for. With the use of a new device that uses kryptonite to disassemble shiny black bricks, Lex breaks The Joker out of prison and the two start to work together to find Batman's supply of kryptonite. With the combined threat of Lex and Joker, Batman reluctantly agrees to let Superman help in the fight.
Batman, Robin and Superman will go all over Gotham and even take a detour to Metropolis in order to take on the evil-doers. While the film focuses on the three heroes, plus Lex and The Joker, the good guys will also have to round up the rest of Batman's rogue gallery since The Joker's release led to the escape of characters like Two-Face, Catwoman, Bane, Penguin and Poison Ivy. Before the end of the film though, Batman and Superman will be joined by the rest of the Justice League as heroes like Wonder Woman, Cyborg, Green Lantern, The Flash and the Martian Manhunter make appearances.
Not only does the Blu-ray release come with an exclusive Clark Kent/Superman LEGO minifigure, but there is a whole slew of on-disc extras that fans of LEGO and/or Batman should enjoy. These include a featurette about making stop-motion LEGO films, as well as a Batman stop-motion short all on its own, but there are also three cartoons; two from Batman: The Brave and the Bold and one from Teen Titans. There are also stop-motion shorts submitted by fans of the toys for various contests.
While the movie uses the same cut-scenes from LEGO Batman 2 (the game), the quality of those scenes is greatly increased. I was especially impressed by the dents, scratches and other blemishes that appeared on many of the LEGO characters; it is obvious that these particular minifigures have seen some serious playtime. LEGO Batman: The Movie - DC Super Heroes Unite is an interesting attempt to reuse the already developed assets from the game to make another product, and quite frankly, I enjoyed the experience. Sure the game is a lot longer, but there is simply no way to fit in all of the side quests and multiple playthroughs that any TT Games LEGO title has to offer. What this movie has is the core story stitched together in a really good way. It will be interesting to see if other TT Games titles end up becoming straight-to-DVD films.
