Post by Alice on Nov 27, 2010 2:10:13 GMT -8
Silky smooth, or bad hair day?
This movie has quite a history! I first heard about this film (known as simply Rapunzel at the time) in the very early days of my role-playing history. And considering I've role-played since 2002, that's a long time ago. The movie's ridiculously inconsistent development has seen replacements for directors (including Disney god Glen Keane), cut voice actors (Kristin Chenoweth was originally cast as Rapunzel), story direction, sense of humor, hell, even the art style was completely revamped. And, of course, the title. Actually, the title has changed twice: Rapunzel, then Rapunzel Unbraided, and finally Tangled. The movie has been a long time coming, but it's finally here.
Comparing the two different art styles of Rapun-er-Tangled.
This isn't a meaty, in-depth review. It's just what I think. And when I watched the first movie trailer for the first time, I was honestly underwhelmed. That trailer was spectacularly unfunny, and I wasn't pleased with the tone of the thing. But now that I'm taking the way I review movies more seriously than before, I tried my best to not judge a book by its cover. This attitude would definitely help the film, because with a really stupid title (it is, I'm sorry) and a bad movie trailer, there's a lot going against the movie. But I have finally watched the movie, in 3D.
Does Tangled hold its own against the company's best animated classics? HELL NO.
But do I like Tangled, and did I enjoy myself when I watched it in theaters? The answer may surprise you, but yes.
Make no mistake, though, this is a flawed movie. Calling Tangled a musical would be way too kind, and not because there's a shortage of songs. There are plenty of songs, but they're generally not good. Alan Menken may have composed the music and score, but the lyrics were penned by Glenn Slater. Mr. Slater, you should consider seeking a day job. I'm serious. The only song in this film that I clearly remember is "I've Got a Dream," and that's not because it's a great song; the on-screen action was hilarious, and that's why the song remained with me after I left the theater. But generally speaking, this movie had truly forgettable, tedious songs. Tangled was the first time in years when a 'triple-A' animated Disney movie's songs made me think, "Oh, no, not another one." If Tangled is all hair, then the songs are its dandruff.
This movie also has an extremely slow start. Of course, the fairy tale exposition is important and welcome, but it's not until the physical introduction of Flynn Rider when the movie picks up the pace. Up until that point, it was one song after another, and like I said before, the songs really aren't that hot. In fact, just after the last song before the film starts getting lively, the little girl sitting behind me complained, "This is boring." And that little girl is one of Tangled's key target audience. That's bad news.
The villain, Mother Gothel (voiced by Donna Murphy), also isn't too special, which is a big disappointment. At first she's wonderfully funny, but she gradually loses her edge. Maybe this could be attributed to the film's uneven execution, but Mother Gothel isn't as truly cruel as she could be. Lady Tremaine could kick this woman's ass six ways to Sunday. I kept expecting Gothel to slap or physically harm Rapunzel in some way, but she never makes the strike. Parents would cry afoul if that happened, but I think such an action would add substance not only to Rapunzel's situation, but also to Gothel's character in general. Locking Rapunzel up for 18 years is bad, yes, but I wanted more. SPOILER ALERT! If you don't want to be spoiled, skip the next two sentences and move onto the next paragraph! And when Mother Gothel finally does something major and noteworthy, her demise is anticlimactic. Not because of how it happens, but because of what she ends up looking like.
[EDIT: As of 2011, I have warmed up to Gothel as a character. She's not a favorite, but I like her more than when I did at the time I wrote this review.]
It's also true that Tangled isn't original. It has the usual suspects when it comes to Disney: you have the royal heroine's parents who are not named because, in the context of the film, they are only important for being the heroine's parents (hell, they aren't even properly voiced!); you have mistaken identity; you have animal sidekicks; you have a boy and a girl who initially start as disinterested in each other, but by the end love springs eternal and the two get hitched (this was done in the last major animated Disney film, The Princess and the Frog); you have song numbers about the heroine wanting to be where the people are, and wants to see them, wants to see them dancing, walking around on those--what do you call them?--you get it. I give some leeway to this movie because I can buy the 'homage' excuse, but I can also see how people could accuse this film of ripping off older, better Disney movies.
By now you're probably thinking, "After [Joe] has whined so much about Tangled, why is he giving it three stars out of four?" That question is legitimate, and my answer has two parts: art and characters.
I like the way Tangled looks a lot. Granted, it's not what Glen Keane had in mind: he wanted Rapunzel to look like Jean-Honoré Fragonard's painting "The Swing", in the sense that it would look like a moving painting and have the fluidity of hand-drawn animation. Yeah, Tangled looks different, but not in a bad way. At least, I don't think. I like the character designs (Flynn Rider and Rapunzel's kingly father especially), and Rapunzel does look Keane-ish, what with the huge eyes and face that fences cute and attractive. Of course, a Rapunzel film would mean nothing if the hair looked bad, but in this film the hair looks great.
The story doesn't set the world on fire, but thankfully the characters alleviate this film from mediocre to good. A big factor in what makes this movie work is that the animal characters, Pascal the chameleon and Maximus the horse, are not annoying. They don't speak, actually! These two characters must rely on pantomime to convey emotion, and that always goes a long way for me. In fact, Maximus is hands-down my all-time favorite horse from a major Disney motion picture. Pascal and Maximus drew guffaws from the audience I was in, myself included.
And, of course, we have Rapunzel and Flynn. Rapunzel could have easily been injected with a gratuitously feminist attitude (like Mia Wasikowska's Alice in Burton's disappointing Alice), but Rapunzel thankfully avoids that. She's still innocent and dainty, but she also matures throughout the film in way that didn't annoy me. Mandy Moore did a great job with the character, nailing both the charming innocence of the character, as well as her developing maturity. I would say she also did a great job with the singing, but I can't because the songs are a collective lowpoint in the film.
Flynn steals the show as the male lead. I'm not familiar with Zachary Levi (I never watched "Chuck"), but his character is charming. It's obvious that Disney wanted Tangled's leading man to be predominantly featured after The Princess and the Frog's disappointing box office returns, but Flynn is thankfully not unbearable. Tangled could have completely sucked if the emphasized character was a total turd in the punchbowl, but I like Flynn a lot. Speaking as a certified smart alleck, Flynn grew on me. Although I still think of Jeff Bridges in Tron whenever I hear the word "Flynn" in a Disney movie.
My favorite scene is the "I've Got a Dream" sequence, and not because the song is great. The on-screen action was just very funny, and got the biggest laughs in my movie theater. And that's another reason why I ultimately like Tangled: at its funniest, it's definitely funny. This movie has great physical humor and clever gags. Forget flatulence: a frying pan on the head is as funny as it's always been! It's a huge shame that this periodically humorous movie had such a lousy first trailer.
Surprisingly, Tangled isn't that action-packed of a modern animated Disney film. There's only one scene I recall that was heavy in prolonged action. Otherwise, this movie is best taken as a character-driven experience more than something rollicking.
I briefly mentioned this before, but I watched the film in 3D. I won't waste time on the whole 3D affair, because the concept has both supporters and detractors. I think 3D can enhance a movie, but a movie shouldn't exist just to have stuff flying in your face all the time. But at the same time, a movie shouldn't just have 3D if the extra dimension isn't meaningful. For Tangled, I thought the 3D effects and scope worked better than what I saw in both Up and Toy Story 3.
I had to work for it a little bit, but I can say that I like the movie, despite its big flaws. It's not as good as The Princess and the Frog, and it's certainly not as good as Disney's best. In fact, The Princess and the Frog would have been the better choice for the Walt Disney Animation Studio's "50th Animated Feature." Tangled is not a fantastic movie, not even great, but it entertained this critic. And at the end of the day, that's just fine. Disney could have done better, that's for sure, but Disney films have also been known to be much, much worse.
No matter how you look at it, the fact is Tangled will be Disney's last big-budgeted animated fairy tale for now. There are no other entries in the genre in the foreseeable future. This is because of The Princess and the Frog's tragically disappointing gross. The fact that Disney will not produce any more animated fairy tales in the foreseeable future might shock you, but when you really think about it Disney has abandoned the genre several times before. The gap between Snow White and Cinderella was thirteen years, and the gap between Sleeping Beauty and The Little Mermaid was a whopping thirty years. Actually, The Princess and the Frog was the first 'Disney fairy tale' in almost 20 years, so the fact that we got two consecutive fairy tale Disney films is pretty lucky.
I say that Tangled, while not superb, is a safe wig to try on. Just be sure to keep your expectations in check.
*** out of ****
