Tangled - quick review (1 Viewer)

Disney's retelling of the story of Rapunzel is briskly paced, with Zach Levi voicing Flynn Ryder, and Mandy Moore voicing/singing for Rapunzel. Rapunzel is this young lady who's been sheltered and lives in a tower high in the sky throughout her formative years. Rapunzel's interesting characteristic is that she has super-long blonde hair with healing powers from a magical flower, which led to her being kidnapped as a baby by Mother Gothel. Rapunzel's hair is so long that Mother has to use Rapunzel's hair to be pulled up to Rapunzel's pad for visits with Rapunzel from time to time.

As it were, the scroundrel of a bandit, Flynn happens on Rapunzel's place after a chase from the palace guards after he snags a satchel with a royal crown in it. Rapunzel smacks Flynn with a iron frying pan, and after taking stock of the situation, convinces Flynn to take her to the place where floating lights come from on the day of her birth. From there, the pair have their adventures, though Mother Gothel is in pursuit of Rapunzel all the while. The 3D version is a little too dark due to film's dark settings at times in the storyline, so 2D is more than adequate for this animated film.


Oh, loved the personality and expressions of the palace horse, Maximus, who has a funny buddy-buddy relationship with Flynn, even with the scrappy "horseplay" between the two of them.


I give it 3 stars, or a grade of B.

Disney got so much right in this film that the shortcomings are that much more frustrating.


The animation is beautiful, and at times, incredible. I was reminded sometimes of looking at the original paintings that were done for the older films that you see in the making-of documentaries for the classics. Alan Menken's music is catchy, and reminiscent of his past work. The songs tell us about the characters, which is what songs should do in most good musicals. The story is well done. They properly expanded/changed the original story for a feature length film. This could have been a top tier Disney film.


The HUGE shortcoming is the screenwriter, Dan Fogelman. The person who hired this guy should be fired, and the screenplay should have been trashed. Its tired, dated, sitcom-style of comedy does not belong on the big screen. The characterizations are also tired. It also seems to show more contempt for the original story than respect. The pre-credits sequence should have been expanded. The general tone and intelligence of the dialog throughout the film should have risen above what can be seen nightly on the boob tube. Why spend so much money on a film to only incorporate such stupid, unengaging dialog?


I was a couple of weeks late in seeing this film. I'm glad I saw it for all that Disney got right. What they got right could have made this a first-rate movie going experience. However, the important and big thing that they got wrong lowers the film to a 3rd rate movie-going experience. C+