Review #635: 'Tangled' (2010)

The past decade has seen the giant corporation that is the House of Mouse, Disney, struggle somewhat with their output, never managing to recapture the magic of the early classics, nor the rich comedy and iconic music of their 90's re-emergence. They've now bought Pixar, who are still making movies that are very much their own, and the rights to the Star Wars franchise, so money-making is still a dead cert. But in a quest to re-discover their old magic, they went back to the tried-and-tested, and admittedly dated, tradition of the fairytale, and by combining this with the visual humour of Dreamworks' output (but funnier) and some truly dazzling CGI/hand-drawn animation, they've managed to create arguably their first success in years with Tangled, a re-imagination of the Rapunzel fairytale.

After discovering that a magic flower has the ability to temporarily restore her youth, Mother Gothel (Donna Murphy) lives for centuries until a king steals the flower to heal with deathly ill and pregnant queen. She lives, and gives birth to Rapunzel (Mandy Moore), whose hair seems to possess the same magical powers as the flower. Gothel kidnaps the baby and takes her back to a high tower, where she grows up to be a bubbly, but lonely teenager. Because cutting her hair causes the lock to lose its magical power, Mother Gothel forbids Rapunzel to cut her hair, which by her eighteenth birthday, is about fifty feet long. After Gothel is out one day, the thief Flynn Rider (Zachary Levi), after the stealing the queen's crown, escapes his pursuers into Rapunzel's tower.

My main issue with Tangled is something that plagues most, if not all, of today's musicals, and that is that the songs are simply not up to scratch. It's gotten so bad that we don't even get a bad but annoyingly catchy soundtrack by a pop star has-been (I'm looking at you, Phil Collins!), and we are forced to sit through many instantly forgettable musical numbers. But where it did surprise me, is the romance between Rapunzel and Flynn, where I found myself actually caring about their relationship, which is delicately handled and involves two easily likeable characters. It certainly doesn't break any ground, but this at least feels like Disney again, even peppering the film with moments of menace that evoke Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) and Pinocchio (1940). And the chameleon Pascal is one the best animal characters Disney have ever created.


Directed by: Nathan Greno, Byron Howard
Voices: Mandy Moore, Zachary Levi, Donna Murphy, Ron Perlman
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie