Movie Review: Tangled

To forget about my worries and the way the world was going to Hades in a Hand Basket for a while, I took the wife and kids out to go see 'Tangled' yesterday afternoon.  In case you have been trapped under a rock, or Filibustering in the Senate for the last month, and haven't seen the commercials, Tangled is Disney's update on the Repunzel Fairly tale.

There are a few differences between the Brothers Grim version, and this one, made, as usual by Disney, to sand the harsh corners of the real dirty world off the fairy tale.  Instead of Repunzel being taken by the Mother Gothel character because her father wanted a magic plant, and was willing to trade the life of his then unborn daughter for the life of his pregnant wife, she is the daughter of the king and queen, and she is kidnapped for her magical hair.  Also, instead of the attempted rescuing being performed by a prince, it's charming roguish thief.  And they added a horse and chameleon for comic relief.

Any question?  Good...ready, break!

It's a good movie.  Getting to see it with my wife and kids pushed it to a great afternoon(but for one thing we will get to later).  The plot, as you can imagine, is fairly boiler plate...girl locked in tower with only a chameleon for a friend, girl broken out of tower to go see some floating lights, evil Mother Gothel's gives chase.  Boy and girl fall for each other, broken up so Evil Step Mother Mother Gothel can lure her back to tower, realize they really do love one another, and dashing rescue.  In between there are exciting chase scenes with the worlds coolest horse, and since it's Disney, there are couple of songs and some dancing barbarians talking about their dreams.  None of the songs are as memorable as 'Beauty and the Beast' or 'A Whole New World' from Aladdin, but they are well sung.  Mandy Moore was the voice of Repunzel, and this was a well cast movie. 

The animation was well done.  Hair was very life like, and the characters faces and emotions were well done.  The added for comic effect horse and chameleon were great, and in general I would say this movie was funnier than it was romantic. The Mother Gothels character stole the show, her evil powers in this one being limited to 'Ultimate Passive Agressiveness', which seams pretty appropriate for the world we live in now. 

So, all in all, I can think of nothing negative to say about the movie.  One thing shocked me, in that occasionally, there was no doubt cleavage shown on the Repunzel character.  They said she was 18, so this was realistic, but usually in the past Disney has stuck to high cut collars and bumps.  Guess animation technology is getting to good to ignore it.  I was not offended or anything...just made me feel a little funny(and creepy) to notice it.

Okay...bitch mode on now.  The version of the movie was saw was in 3-D.  First one of the new crop of 3-D movies I have seen.  It seemed to work good, certainly didn't detract from the movie.  Now...would I have enjoyed the movie just as much in 2-D....yeah...it didn't add that much for me.  I'm not the target audience for the 'Wonder of butterfly's and lantern's coming towards you' effect.  My girls dug it.

However, for seeing the 3-D version, we were charged more money.  In fact, it cost the 4 of us $48 for our tickets.  Then, when we got inside, to get a large popcorn and large sprite to share(and a pretzel because SWMBO skipped lunch) it was another $18.  I expected the snack price, but not the 'sorry, not only no matinee price for 3-D, AND it costs extra) put me in a pretty grumpy mood for the first 20 minutes.

Luckily, the move was good enough to get me out of it. 

If you have kids, go see this movie.  If you don't have kids, wait for video and see how disconcerting YOU find Repunzels cleavage and big green eyes.