Surprisingly dark and subversive, under the surface

Rating: 9/10 (8 February 2014)

In The Birds by Aristophanes (414BC), Mr. Trusting and Mr. Hopeful erect a perfect city in the clouds, to be named Cloud Cuckoo Land -- an unrealistically idealistic state where everything is perfect. The Birds (414BC) is described by critics as a "perfectly realized fantasy remarkable for the gaiety of its songs".
Scratch the surface, and there is darkness underneath.
This is also an underlying theme of The Lego Movie. In the opening, main character Emmitt sees a TV show where the president lets on that the world will end in three days. And then everyone goes back to being happy, as the costs of everything go up, and all the jokes and songs are repeated. Everyone follows instructions.
Later, Emmitt is interrogated by "Bad Cop" -- and occasionally reassured by "Good Cop". While the Good Cop makes everything seem okay and perfect, the Bad Cop is never far away.
Later, they go to Cloud Cuckoo Land (!), "a land up in the clouds where there are no rules, no limits, no bushy mustaches and no bedtimes." There they meet Princess Unikitty, who has no negative thoughts. Wyldstyle remarks on how often she says "No" in the place with no rules.
Later still, there is a wonderful place, but with signs saying "Do Not Touch" and "Off Limits" everywhere.
--- and I'll stop Lego Movie = Greek Comedy there ---
This is one of those movies with a lot of layers. I wondered how I would describe the movie. Action Thriller? Superhero? Love Story? Horror? Comedy? Tragedy? Sci-Fi? Fantasy? Western? Cataclysm? I thought about how I could argue the case for any of these.
I greatly enjoyed the zippy, intense, manic drive of the movie, and liked many of the jokes -- but also frequently saw the underlying darkness that was being hinted at. Well, perhaps not hinted -- many of the references were blatant, but maybe they expect that most people will be distracted by the action and not try to process something important, just like Emmitt at the start of the movie.
Fun and exciting, but underneath, it's like Batman, where everything is dark.