Tangled - my review

The still photo in my last post had me a little wary about going to see Tangled.  I was worried that it was going a be a totally modern and PC version of the original story.  Still I had a hunch that this could be a great movie and after finding that it was getting good reviews I decided to go see it.

As I had feared the original story of Rapunzel has been significantly altered, partly due to necessity of turning a very short story into a feature length film and also to make what I consider to be improvements on the original version.  The essence of the story though, remains well intact and yes, this is a true fairy tale in every sense of the word.  It never winks at you nor does it nudge you in the ribs with its elbow.  It is not a parody of a fairy tale and does not stop along the way to try and convince you to believe in its magic.  If you let it, it will make you feel like a kid again.  The story feels fresh and new and although it does have a modern feel it retains enough of the more old school serious elements of the story to be a refreshing change from the sarcastic humour and preachy propaganda cartoons modern Hollywood churns out these days.

In the real story of Rapunzel the girl was a commoner and the boy was a prince.  In Tangled in 2010 the girl is by default a princess and not only is the boy not a prince but he's a ruffian and thief as well.  That in itself is a topic for another day and I won't get into it here but I will admit that it did workout in the end just fine.

Although Tangled does contain elements of the ordinary modern animated movie (the obligatory miniature sidekick doing comic relief, this one's called Pascal) and a couple of nods to other movies (The Sound of Music and Raiders of the Lost Ark) I only heard one single extraneous "like" and zero pop culture references so this film should stand the test of time quite well I think.

I will admit to one disappointment I had along the way in Tangled.  Although there were several instances where Rapunzel was truly sad and her eyes did seem to moisten she never shed a single tear.  I was just thinking that it was too bad that our modern culture is in such a state that a girl can't be shown actually sobbing over a boy anymore, part of that whole fish and bicycle thing I guess.  Finally though, she does shed a tear and I realized that it was much better that she hadn't until that moment and my previous disappointment was suddenly silly and then forgotten.  In fact, I believe that there are exactly two tears shed in the entire movie.  Their impact was made much greater by their rarity.

There are of course several songs in this Disney movie and I found some of them to be just adequate, a couple were good and one in particular was just perfect. The main song, the one that Rapunzel sings a few times throughout the film is quite simple but is by far the best. Not necessarily because it might sound good on the radio but because of the context it has in the movie.  The very same song one time may be funny, another time just kind of nice and finally it becomes the climax of the whole movie when the lyrics take on a whole new meaning and purpose than what they signified earlier in the story. That is what made it so wonderful to me.

At its core the story of Rapunzel is about love and real sacrifice. This is what makes it great and what raises it above the level of so many other pretenders. In the original story both Rapunzel and the Prince suffer greatly for their love of each other. Although the circumstances are somewhat different in Tangled the demonstrations of love and sacrifice are well demonstrated once again.

To sum up, Tangled is funny, original and a straight up sincere fairy tale.  It's magical and moving in the most pure and non manipulative way. It's gorgeous to look at and most importantly it's a great story which is very well told.

I thought that after How To Train Your Dragon and Toy Story 3 this year, there would be no other serious contender for best animated feature at the Oscars but it wouldn't surprise me at all if Tangled beat them both.  I do love both those movies but I must say that Tangled is not only the best animated film I've seen this year, it's the best movie I've seen this year period!

By the way, be sure to see the 3D version.  This is Disney's 50th animated feature film and it's obvious they put their full effort into it. The whole movie is just beautiful to look at and one scene in particular is just gorgeous and heart warming. The 3D is really well done!

Finally and for ONLY those of you who have already seen Tangled here is a little something that will take you back to the best moment of the the movie. It's just audio except for the still photo which will remain unchanged until the end.  Enjoy! (and seriously if you haven't seen it yet this will be a huge spoiler even without video so only push play after you've watched the movie or at least consider yourself warned.)