Whoever had “three” in the “How many LEGO movies will it take before the brand feels stale and uninspired?” pool, step up and claim your prize! (Your prize is that you do not have to watch any more of these.) “The LEGO Ninjago Movie,” an extension of the Cartoon Network series, is about six ordinary teens in the vaguely Japanese metropolis of Ninjago City who spend their after-school hours as color-coded, Power Ranger-y heroes in mech-suits defending the city against attacks by Lord Garmadon (voice of Justin Theroux) — who, as it happens, is the long-lost father of the most ordinary of the teens, Lloyd (Dave Franco). There are scattered chuckles amid the silliness — one of the ninja kids is a robot who insists he’s a human; the monster who terrorizes LEGO buildings is a cat named Meowthra — but the film is only fitfully amusing, relying on meta-references and filling the rest of the time with ordinary animated action sequences. True to its roots, it feels like an overlong episode of a TV show, not a giddy big-screen event.
C (1 hr., 41 min.; )
