Monstrous cats, volcanoes, father son troubles, tears of fire and teen ninjas all find their place in the latest Lego movie: The Lego Ninjago Movie.

The movie is centered around six ninjas who fight to save Ninjago city from the evil Garmadon who happens to be the father of one of the Ninjas. Each ninja represents an element-fire, earth, water, ice, electricity and “green.”  Through their quest to find the weapon that could save the city they must learn about themselves and find their inner strength.

The movie stars the same characters of the TV series but does not have the same detail. After the movie my younger brother, who spends his time running around the house and kicking imaginary foes, rattled off a long list of things that differed from the series. It can hardly be expected to put the same amount of background into a 1 hour 40 minute movie that is in a seven season series but some more character development would have enhanced the movies meaning and story line.

However, changing some of the details from the show was a smart move. When watching the movie I didn’t feel like I was missing anything for not having seen the series. The characters and plot were introduced in such a way that the movie can easily stand alone.

Overall the plot was alright. It had its share of emotional moments and family drama. However there was an equal amount of silliness. Some of the jokes were mildly amusing but others felt as if they were drawn out too long. Although movies such as these tend the have some humor for older audiences, I found that the movie seemed to be slacking slightly in that area.

I would give The Lego Ninjago Movie three out of five stars. Considering that the intended audience is quite young the movie was pretty good, however I think that they could have done a slightly better job of making the movie more interesting for the adults who take their kids to see it.