You knew I was going to have a few things to say about The Lego Batman Movie, right?

Three years ago, I called The Lego Movie “a high-speed roller coaster ride through a story we’ve seen a million times.” Lego Batman turns that idea up to eleven–and if you had to click the link to identify the source of that line, you’re not the sort of person who will enjoy Lego Batman.

Forget about a plot. Lego Batman doesn’t have one. It’s got a couple of tropes loosely stuck together with bubble gum*. To be fair, though, they’re tropes central to the BatmanMythos™

* Speaking of bubble gum, if I never see another trailer for Despicable Me 3, it’ll be too soon. The first two were mildly amusing in an “I don’t want to have to think tonight” way. Judging by the current trailer, however, the franchise has jumped the shark, and it’s going to require actual mental effort to find humor in the third installment. That said–still based on the previews–I’d go see Despicable Me 3 at least a century before I’d risk The Emoji Movie.

What Lego Batman has is a nearly non-stop string of sight- and sound-gags. From Batman’s opening monologue–“All important movies start with a black screen,”–and shameless appropriation of Michael Jackson’s lyrics, all the way through to the closing narration and end credit songs, the film is loaded with pop- and geek-cultural references that only work because they’re superimposed on the image of Batman as the brooding Dark Knight. Because that picture is both the viewers’ mental image and Batman’s self-image, the jokes that should fall flat still elicit laughs.

One case in point: jokes about needing a geek to explain something haven’t worked in at least a quarter-century, if they ever did. But when it’s The Lego Joker telling the audience to ask their geek friends about British robots, it’s honestly snicker-worthy.

Lego Batman also avoids several of the original’s most annoying pitfalls. There’s no reference to the deus ex machina that knocked me right of the The Lego Movie. Barbara Gordon never attains the heights of awesome that early Wyldestyle reached, but she remained her own woman throughout, instead of turning into “Batman’s Girlfriend”. And Robin, the obnoxious sidekick everyone loves to hate, despite his moments of Awesome, is just as delightfully loathsome at the end of the film as at the beginning.

There are a few things I could quibble about–Batman being arbitrarily imprisoned without a trial for having the temerity to arbitrarily lock up The Joker without a trial, for example, or the truth that someone can be a jerk without being a villain.

But even the movie’s greatest misstep–for much of the run time, it’s easy to forget that this is a Lego movie; filming it in live action would have worked almost as well–doesn’t detract from its overall success.

If you have any shred of geek credentials, go see The Lego Batman Movie. Watch for the visual jokes. Listen to the song lyrics–the ones written for the film, not the licensed pop tunes. You’ll enjoy yourself.