Want to know all the stuff ‘The Lego Movie’ is riffing on? Here’s a reference guide

Before The Lego Movie could hit theaters last Friday, some assembly was required.

Correction: A lot of assembly.

Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s incredibly entertaining “block”buster is a hyperkinetic Frankenfilm, cobbled together from a variety of sources both huge (the classic “hero’s journey” monomyth) and teeny (does a certain dolphin noise sound familiar?). The movie is also filled with casting in-jokes, snippets of dialogue borrowed from other movies, and callbacks to the directors’ past work. All in all, it’s enough to make your head spin, Lego minifigure-style — there’s no way for one person to catch all these references in a single viewing.