Tangled
Summary: Long ago, Rapunzel was the new born princess to a happy king and queen but circumstances of her birth made a witch steal her away and lock her up in a tower, raising Rapunzel as her own child instead. And while she is content with her life in the tower she does long to see the floating lights that appear in the sky every year on her birthday. So when a thief comes to her tower to hide she bullies him into taking her to see those lights and ends up with more of an adventure than she expected.
The Good: From all the trailers I thought that Flynn was the main character (which apparently was the intent of the trailers) so I was happily surprised to find out that Rapunzel was instead and that she was a pretty capable lead*. However, I loved Maximus more than any other character in the movie (actually, the trailers made me think that he was Flynn’s accomplice, not a villain of sorts) and every moment he was on screen was hysterical. A lot of the physical humor was funny actually, I laughed quite a bit and I'd certainly recommend the movie to friends for those gags alone. I was entertained when I saw this movie and that should speak for itself
The Bad: Not my favorite Disney movie (or even Disney Princess movie, Mulan is still my favorite) and Rapunzel acted fairly immature for being 17 or 18 in the movie, wish Disney had just made her 15 or 16 in that case. And I have to admit, one of the early songs with Rapunzel singing about all the things that she did all day (very traditionally feminine things she does all day) just rubbed me the wrong way. No I have nothing against women who enjoy doing things like cooking and cleaning all day (I'm just not one of them) but I felt like Disney was saying "Look at her, she'll be the perfect wife for someone soon!" Just wish she had been a little more, active in her activities, especially considering how active she is in the story later on. Bascially, the horse really was my favorite character and I just didn't like Flynn and Rapunzel as much as I could have.
The Art: I found this post (and this one) after I saw the movie and I’m really amazed at just how much detail the animators managed to stick in this movie. That’s a definite plus to CGI movies I suppose, adding in extra detail without taking up extra time, so I’m glad to see Disney taking advantage of it. I didn’t particularly like Rapunleze’s character design actually (I’ve always thought that Disney eyes are really big, yes this is coming from the anime fan) but the whole movie looked very good.
The Music: I had forgotten that, since this is a Disney Princess movie, that there would be a lot of singing in it. I didn’t really like any of the songs (which is odd, usually I like at least one of the songs in these movies, as silly as I feel admitting it) but nothing really clicked with me here. Well done music for sure, big orchestra that was well composed but nothing that I loved.
So, I don't have the urge to run out and buy this movie now but I am happy I saw it and did really enjoy parts of it. But I never was as fond of princess stories as other girls were (heck, as a kid I was making up stories about my stuffed animals, especially the bears, and my favorite fairy tale was a toss up between the girl disguised as a boy who saved the prince and the cat and dog who saved the day, I'm just not the target audience here) and I'm still not as fond of them now. Although, I do have the urge to re-read Talking with Dragons now after all the frying pan humor, hmmmmm.
*I approve of having a frying pan as a weapon by the way, ended up reminding me of The Enchanted Forest Chronicles quite a bit and those are some of the books that got me into fantasy in the first place.
