Old Disney: Nicholas! I'm back buddy!
Nicholas: Old Disney! Oh I missed you so!
Hannah Montana: Crap.
The thing I really gotta know after seeing this is what is Rapunzel's hair like down there? I mean.. is it outrageously long or does she cut it or trim it at least or is it braided or something? What? What's down there? Don't tell me you've never thought of that.
But Jesus I love this movie. Now I wouldn't say Tangled was a better film that The Princess & the Frog but this was definitely much funnier. So we've got the classic tail of Rapunzel with a few tweaks here and there. We have this kingdom where the queen almost dies in childbirth but is given a magic flower that heals her but also gives her daughter magic hair that possesses healing abilities when it is sung to. But she was stolen by Donna Murphy and locked in a tower to keep herself young but everything changes when a dashing thief stumbles upon the tower and the two of them reluctantly go on a journey that will change both of them.
The premise though interesting and well thought out is very generic Disney but the animation and script for Tangled is anything but. Here we have a lot of set pieces and a lot of jokes done with fantastic snap and wit of a Dreamworks film. I mean the humor in this is over the top and hits you one after the other throughout then film. Think The Emperor's New Groove with better hair. Yeah.....
And the humor in this is mostly faulted to the animators who did a great job animating the characters' expressions in Tangled. There were two characters, Flynn Rider and a horse, whom I felt just stole the show because they were just so gut busting hilarious.Their facial expressions did go into retarded looking territory but hey, it served it's purpose. And thankfully they weren't overused. They come in. Flash out some retardation for one and all to laugh at. Hit a home run. And then disappear.
And the visuals in this are gorgeous. I like this whole art direction of having the animation look almost like moving paintings though they are technically CG. And there are a few action set pieces that is gonna look terrific in 3D particularly the dam breaking scene and the lantern scene. People, if anything.. the price of your admission ticket is worth the 5 minute lantern scene in this movie which i felt was beautiful in classic Disney animation fashion. I'm fucking buying the DVD just for that scene alone.
But I did wish Tangled had a better pacing in it's story. The first 15 minutes of the film felt a little too generic and geared more towards children and to be honest, kinda boring. It's only until they leave the tower did I feel the movie kicks into 3rd gear and after that it becomes awesome. And then towards the end where they have hit every note, it goes back into that classic, predictable children Disney ending that made me groan out loud in the cinema. So it's really a mixed bag of opinion here.
And I did wish the songs were better. Alan Menken, the man who wrote the music for Beauty & the Beast, Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Hercules was behind this and I couldn't help but feel underwhelmed by the songs of Tangled. Sure, they were all still great and had purpose to the story, they weren't boring or anything, they just weren't epic in the scale I remember Alan Menken's songs to be. There is only one song that takes place in a bar and is sung by Brad Garrett and a bunch of piss drunk Vikings of all people that were remotely memorable.
But hey, you know what.. with recent Disney movies like Chicken Little and Meet The Robinsons, Tangled is a huge step up in Disney's triumphant return to being what I have always remembered them to be. Magic. Happy days are here again people.
RATING: 7/10
