CAT OF THE DAY 102: THE LEGO MOVIE (2014)

Everything is awesome, and there is a perceptible feline thread running through this superior slice of product placement masquerading as jolly family animation, manufactured almost entirely out of Lego™ bricks. As Emmet Brickowski passes through his neighbourhood on his way to work at a construction site, he greets Sherry Scratchen-Post, the Cat Lady, and her cats – Jasmine, Dexter, Angie, Loki, Bad Leroy, Fluffy, Fluffy Junior, Fluffy Senior and Jeff – as they emerge meowing from her house and climb into her van.

After work, when Emmet falls into a hole and touches the mystical Piece de Resistance, he has a psychedelic hallucination, during which we fleetingly glimpse the face of a kitten.

At the story’s climax, Emmet is captured and immobilised by the film’s villain, Lord Business. All seems lost. But the ghost of the wizard Vitruvius appears and tells Emmet “the only thing anyone needs to be special is to be believe that you can be. I know that sounds like a cat poster. But it’s true.” And lo and behold, when Emmet falls into the Real World, we actually get to see that cat poster…

Meanwhile, Lord Business prepares to attack Sherry the Cat Lady and the other Lego folk with his Kragle superweapon. (Sherry can later be glimpsed driving a chariot pulled by cats, but the cats are so out of focus that I didn’t take a screengrab of it.)

And we must not forget Princess Unikitty, a unicorn-kitten hybrid (voiced by the very wonderful Alison Brie), a major supporting character from Cloud Cuckoo Land who becomes one of Emmet’s staunchest allies, finally allowing her suppressed aggression to overcome her implacable sweetness, which enables her to launch an attack his enemies at a crucial moment. Here she is introducing herself to Emmet:

Cats rule, even in the Lego universe. And especially when they’re cross-bred with unicorns.