LEGO BIONICLE: Film Retrospective

With ‘The LEGO Movie’ set to come out in the next few days, I was trying to figure out how I could do a LEGO-themed retrospective for this site. However, there’s a problem with that because ‘The LEGO Movie’ is literally the first feature-length LEGO movie. I mean after all, we’re talking about a brand that is primarily known for its construction toy sets. The only ‘movies’ that have been released based around this brand have been direct-to-video. But that’s exactly what I’ll be looking at today. Now, I’m not covering every direct-to-video LEGO movie because while I am a fan of LEGO’s, I haven’t really been a major LEGO fan for many years now so I’m not that familiar with all of the themed sets that they currently release. In fact, I’m pretty sure some of the brands that were around when I was a kid aren’t even in production anymore. Ironically enough, one of those brands is the franchise I’ll be covering in today’s post. This franchise in question was my favorite out of all of the LEGO themes and one that did release a couple of direct-to-video films over the years; BIONICLE.

Now for those of you who aren’t familiar with the BIONICLE franchise, I’ll give you a basic rundown of the story. It all takes place in a world inhabited by organic/machine-like creatures known as the Matoran. These Matoran are looked after by the ‘Great Spirit’ Mata Nui, for whom the Matoran named their island home after. However, things begin to change when Mata Nui is cast into a deep slumber by the evil shape shifter Makuta, allowing him to take over the island of Mata Nui and its inhabitants. To combat this evil, a group of warriors known as ‘the Toa’ (later known as the ‘Toa Nuva’), six beings blessed with the powers of the elements (fire, water, stone, air, ice, and earth) by way of the powerful ‘Kanohi’ Masks that they wear, join forces to take on Makuta and his evil forces. Starting in 2004, a new prequel storyline began focusing on a new group of Toa, the ‘Toa Metru’, who were revealed to have become the village elders of Mata Nui, on another island known as Metru Nui many years ago.

Okay, I’ll admit that looking back, this whole premise sounds a little ridiculous and believe it or not, it sort of gets even more complicated after that. But when I was a kid, I loved this franchise mainly because it was sort of the first LEGO brand that was ‘story-driven’ while most of their brands were just themed around certain ‘concepts’ and licensed franchises like ‘Star Wars’ or ‘Harry Potter’. Sadly, this franchise is no longer around as it was discontinued in 2010. I had already started to move away from being a major LEGO fan before this but even now I’m still kind of bugged about it because it truly was one of the best LEGO brands ever. Maybe one day this franchise can make a comeback, but for now, it’s only a memory. There were four direct-to-video BIONICLE films released during its ten-year run. However, I’m only covering the first three in the franchise because the stories and characters of those movies are the ones that I’m familiar with. I won’t be covering 2009’s ‘BIONICLE: The Legend Reborn’ because that was after I moved away from being a LEGO fan. Let’s not waste any more time and look back at the first three direct-to-video BIONICLE films.

BIONICLE: MASK OF LIGHT (2003)

The first direct-to-video ‘BIONICLE’ film was basically the finale for the original storyline of the Toa and their fight against the evil Makuta. In this film, two Matoran named Takua and Jaller find a Kanohi Mask known as ‘The Mask of Light’. This mask is to be worn by the fabled ‘Seventh Toa’, the Toa of Light, who will be the one to defeat Makuta. Takua and Jaller then head off on a journey to find this Toa. Overall, the story is a little ‘standard’, not holding any surprises along the way. In other words, you can kind of tell what’s going to happen. On the other hand, this film does a great job at handling the ‘lore’ of the series, from its characters to the world of Mata Nui to the ‘Three Virtues’ that all Matoran honor: Unity, Duty, and Destiny and how these virtues play a key part in the Matoran philosophy. For a direct-to-video animated film, the animation is pretty good as far as these kinds of films are concerned. Sure, it’s not perfect but it does have some interesting designs, like how they gave all of the characters a more ‘humanistic’ design while still basing these designs around their more ‘mechanical’ features. Overall, the first BIONICLE movie will no doubt please fans of the franchise and for the non-fans this film is still pretty entertaining even if you’re not too familiar with the license.

Rating: 4/5

BIONICLE 2: LEGENDS OF METRU NUI (2004)

After the ‘Mask of Light’ storyline ended, the BIONICLE franchise went into prequel territory, with the story now taking place many years before the events of the first film on the island city of Metru Nui. Here, a new group of Toa known as the ‘Toa Metru’, six Matoran (who became the village elders (AKA Turaga) of Mata Nui years later) who were transformed into Toa by powerful stones given to them by a former Toa, Toa Lhikan, must prove themselves and protect the ‘Heart’ of the city, which gets a little difficult after they are branded as ‘imposters’. This is a superior sequel to the first one, with a better story that actually has a few surprises. This film also has a better cast of characters, namely because this one actually focuses on the Toa more while in the first film they were sort of the ‘secondary characters’. The animation is also better and once again features some really interesting designs that keep in line with the actual construction toys. When I was a kid, this was my personal favorite of the first three films (it was the only one of them I actually bought on DVD) and looking back, this one still holds up quite nicely and as such, it’s the best of the direct-to-video BIONICLE films.

Rating: 5/5!

BIONICLE 3: WEB OF SHADOWS (2005)

Finally, we have ‘Web of Shadows’, a direct sequel to ‘Legends of Metru Nui’ so in that case... expect some minor spoilers in case you haven’t seen that film. Anyway, in this film, the Toa Metru, after leaving their home to save the Matoran, return to Metru Nui to rescue the Matoran that are still there. However, when they return, they find that the city is in ruins and has been overtaken by an army of creatures known as the Visorak. This one… is really dark in both the story and its design. I mean, ‘dark’ as far as a film geared towards pre-teens and younger audiences can be but still pretty dark. In some ways, it’s more of a stylistic form of ‘darkness’ but at the same time, this film’s plot probably has the most depth out of all of these films. Not only do the Toa have to deal with this new enemy, but they end up being poisoned and turned into ‘beast-like’ creatures known as ‘the Hordika’. This threatens to split the team up, especially after their leader, Vakama, is overcome by ‘the beast’ that is now in him resulting in him actually joining forces with the bad guys. Speaking of ‘bad guys’, this one actually might have the most entertaining one in the entire series in Roodaka, the queen of the Visorak horde who is able to convince Vakama to join her side as they plan to overtake the ‘king’ of the horde, Sidorak. Because of this, along with some great action sequences, ‘BIONICLE 3’ is a nice fitting end to this, shall we say, trilogy of films (again, I won’t be covering the last film in this franchise because that’s where we get into the material I’m absolutely unfamiliar with).

Rating: 4.5/5

I realize that it’s kind of hard for me to recommend any of these films not only because these are direct-to-video films that came out about a decade ago, but also because they’re part of a franchise that hasn’t been running for a few years now; a franchise that is sort of marketed towards a pre-teen audience. But even with that in mind, I now kind of view these as ‘nostalgic’ movies because I was such a big fan of this franchise while it was around and I watched these movies quite a bit when they came out. As such, if you were a fan of this franchise back in the day, then you’ll probably enjoy these films very much and they will serve as a nice trip down memory lane. If you weren’t a fan of the franchise, the films themselves are still pretty entertaining although it does sort of help if you were familiar with the franchise. My personal recommendation would be the second film because out of these three films, I feel that it’s the best overall in terms of execution.