So I’ve seen Tangled. You have a problem with that? Well, it was free after all so why not, and I have to say I don’t regret going to watch it.
In a nutshell: it’s a Disney movie. So yes, now you know what to expect. Wait, come back, I haven‘t finished! Although it’s a Disney move that is clearly aimed at kids, I have to say there were a few moments that had me chortling away into my Capri-Sun like a hyperactive child at a picnic.
The story centres around the beautiful Rapunzel who as you may or may not know, is locked in a tower, waiting to be rescued. You can tick beautiful female off on your Disney movie checklist now.
A tangled web of spoilers lie ahead.
This isn’t the typical retelling of the old fairy tale however. Rapunzel isn’t exactly being held against her will, so to speak. In the beginning there’s this magic flower that can heal and de-age you. An evil old woman named Gothel finds the flower and hides it, keeping the power all to herself. How greedy. Anyway that doesn’t last too long as the Queen of the kingdom becomes sick during labour and requires the flower power to revive her. The guards set out to find the magic flower and find it, much to the dismay of Gothel.
The flower is crushed down into some powerful liquid and used to heal the Queen. But what happens to the power I hear you ask? It goes into the child! Who, as you probably figured out, is Rapunzel!
Disney bingo players: tick off old evil woman and magical item.
Rapunzel has the power in her hair, which grows and grows and grows. When she sings, her hair lights up and has healing powers, but if she cuts her hair the power is lost. Sad face. While i'm on the subject, when the hair lights up it really is brillaintly animated, the lighting in this movie is immense.
Gothel figures out the child has the power and manages to somehow scale the walls of the palace without being noticed and steal the baby Rapunzel AND get away. Seriously, they need better security. She takes her to a hidden tower that conveniently no one knows about and keeps her in there as if she were her own daughter. All the King's horses and all the King's men can not find her, and the King and Queen are obviously dismayed. Every year on Rapunzel’s birthday they set off glow lanterns into the night sky, in hope that one day she will see them and come back home.
Unfortunately this doesn’t happen, be a short movie if it did! Fast forward eighteen years and Rapunzel is still in the tower with her small chameleon companion, Pascal (tick off animal companion). She is unable to leave as her ‘mother’ Gothel says the world is deemed ‘too dangerous’ for her to go out into. So she stays inside and cooks and cleans, paints and sketches, everything you could think of doing indoors, minus the Xbox. Rapunzel wants nothing more than to go into the outside world and see the glow-lanterns that light the night sky every year on her birthday, but her ‘mother’ wont allow it.
Enter, Flynn Rider, a thief and all round rapscallion who has conveniently stolen the princess’s shiny crown with his two burly accomplices. Upon running away from the King’s pathetically inept guards he ends up ditching his two accomplices and runs into a forest where he stumbles upon a random tower. You get the idea. Oh there’s male rapscallion and inept guards, nearly missed those two, give them a tick.
Flynn climbs the tower to be greeted by Rapunzel’s frying pan, knocking him clean out. Give her a break, she hasn’t seen another human being for like 18 years. Once he comes round she makes a deal with him, for him to show her the world, in exchange for the crown she has hidden from him. Oh sorry, it’s not Aladdin, he has to show her the lanterns in exchange for the crown.
This is probably the point where the movie starts to pick up, there are plenty of laughs from this point onwards. Alright it’s not great big belly-laugh stuff but there’s plenty to make you chuckle, which on a whole is unusual for a Disney movie.
Along the way we get to see their adventures through a roughian pub known as the Snuggly Duckling and a sword fight with a royal guard’s horse called Maximus (yes, you heard me correctly), who is attempting to arrest Flynn as his rider was too inept to do so. There’s the revelation of the magical hair and of course the falling in love. It wouldn’t be Disney without it after all. Another ticked box.
Once the two fall in love and all that jazz, Gothel (you knew she’d be back) enlists the two burly accomplices from earlier on to take revenge on Flynn Rider. They kidnap Flynn and send him sailing off towards the city. Then Gothel comes out to comfort poor Rapunzel who thinks he’s ditched her for the crown. Oh what a street rat! Sorry love rat!
Flynn gets captured by the inept guards and is sent to be hanged. Cheery. Meanwhile Rapunzel, who’s been dragged back home, realises she is in fact the long-lost princess! Now she’s in trouble as the evil old woman wants to take her away again! What will our hero do!? Enter the fun bunch of roughians from the Snuggly Duckling who take out the guards to enable Flynn to escape. But how will he get to Rapunzel in time? Maximus to the rescue!
So off he rides with his noble steed, back to the tower which he climbs up to rescue his fair maiden. However upon entering the window he gets stabbed by the evil Gothel. Bummer. Gothel starts to drag Rapunzel away but she pleads with her to allow her to heal Flynn. If she does allow this then Rapunzel promises to go quietly and live with her forever. This is a Disney movies so promises can’t be broken of course.
Gothel agrees to her deal, but just as Rapunzel tries to heal Flynn, he cuts off all her hair, much to the dismay of Gothel who falls to her death out of the window. Gasp! Yes, I saw it coming a mile off, but it’s still quite shocking. Now, he can’t be healed! Not since Mufasa have we seen death on screen like this! But no, sticking with the Disney book of clichés, our hero survives! How? She cries on him because as it turns out the power was in her all the long and not in the hair! Aww. Yes, I know it feels a little like a kop out.
Wrap a ‘they lived happily ever after’ bow around it and that’s Tangled. I enjoyed it, despite it being largely a typical Disney film. It looks good, it’s funny, and there’s slightly more character development in this movie than the usual Disney animations. Bet you didn’t have that one on your checklist.
Also different about this movie is the villain, Mother Gothel. She’s not your typical evil for the sake of being evil character you find in most of Disney’s flicks. Compared to the likes of Ursula from The Little Mermaid or Scar from The Lion King, she’s more passive aggressive and she’s actually quite witty at times. She relies on the protagonist, Rapunzel, which I’m fairly sure Disney haven’t done before, so it’s not a simple case of a baddie wanting to kill the goodie, she hasn’t locked Rapunzel in a cage instead she‘s created a whole new identity for her.
One bad point for this movie however are the songs, it wouldn’t be a Disney animation without them now would it? But the songs in Tangled just aren’t very memorable, and the ones that seem to have something about them, end abruptly. Some of them just don’t have a point in being there, like they’ve just been shoe-horned in because they need to have a song and dance, or tick a box.
Another thing that might be a concern is the length of time between action sequences. It’s not a big issue for me, but kids who’ll be watching it might get a little bored. It’s the unfortunate sacrifice they had to make in aid of character development.
Overall I think Tangled deserves praise, it stays true to the Disney formula whilst also having good characters with more depth to them and it is actually funny. Yes, some of the songs are a bit naff, and yes it’s aimed more at a younger audience than myself but this is a good movie for kids and adults alike. You can do far far worse than Tangled, it’s not knock-out stuff, but it’s better than the average. I’m going to give it three stars, which I think it deserves for making an effort and not just churning out a totally typical Disney flick, it comes close to four stars. Give it a watch, it’ll surprise you.
Final verdict: 3 Stars.
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