Let down your hair

Kids animated films are often pitched all wrong; as they are often too scary, or have bad storylines, but Tangled is simply not a film with gimmicks at all. It has a lovely hand drawn quality to it, and although obviously pitched at girls in general…

It is sometimes with a slight sense of foreboding that I pack my car full of small people and set off to review movies for the smaller people in our lives.

The films are often pitched all wrong (in my opinion); as they are often too scary for truly small people, have bad storylines (which anyone older would find insulting) and terrible animation (which truthfully most people would find offensive). I am often surprised at the crap that seems to be aimed at the mass market. Is it that as it is ‘mass’ that they somehow conclude that means “will settle for less” or “will make do with mediocre?” Animation as a whole has taken a wee bit of a pounding lately as companies have churned out movies that are more gimmicky than well made.

Tangled is simply not a film with gimmicks at all. It has a lovely hand drawn quality to it, and although obviously pitched at girls in general (come on – it is the story of Rapunzel!) there are some wonderfully solid funny support characters to help it appeal to a wider audience. Obviously Disney have still continued with their ‘Princess’ theme – but there appears (to my mind anyway) to be a marked departure from that, and a movement into a wider appeal. It is, a marked improvement from “the Princess and the Frog” from last year. The screenplay (by Dan Fogelman) rips along at a cracking pace with not too many of those adult jokes that animators seem to think we, as adults need to hear during a child’s movie. The writers of the Toy Story trilogy always seem to get that balance right, of the jokes simply, cleverly making you laugh instead of having a laugh at that isolated joke that doesn’t appear to be part of a well written story at all (if you know what I mean).

The story starts with our hero “Flynn Rider” (voiced by Zachary Levi from ‘Chuck” fame) narrating the beginning of the story.

It is a turning of the traditional story of Rapunzel somewhat on its head. The baby Rapunzel is gifted with magical healing properties in her hair. When the witch Gothel realises this, she steals the baby to keep from herself, so she can stay forever young (oh how lucky…). Each year Rapunzel’s royal parents released thousands of lanterns into the sky to call their beloved daughter home.

Jump forward in time nearly 18 years, and Rapunzel is still kept safely up in her high tower by her “protective mother” who is really the witch Gothel. Her one friend is the quirky “Pascal the Chameleon” who though tiny is a comedic heavyweight! The thief Flynn Rider chooses (unwisely) to hide himself after stealing a royal tiara, in said high tower. The feisty Rapunzel manages to subdue Rider and convince him to take her to see the ‘lights in the sky’ that she has been watching ever year on her birthday. Rider is decidedly reluctant and does everything her can to encourage her to return to the tower so he can escape with the tiara. Along the way they meet an excellent cast of characters – all the thugs at the ‘snugly duckling’ pub, and the wonderful Maximus the horse who thinks he is part bloodhound who goes from foe to friend during the course of the story.

The songs (as with all good Disney musicals) are great. They very luckily decided to get Alan Menken and Glenn Slater together – and really is a reminder of how good those older stories of ‘The Little Mermaid” et al really still are. They haven’t worked on a Disney film since Home on the Range (and the less said about that film, the better). Mandy Moore voices Rapunzel and does an excellent job. In the process she destroys my theory that beautiful actors aren’t necessarily good voice actors. We think just because an actor is good at physical acting/comedy, they will somehow be fabulous as voice actors with animation. This is rarely the case (in my humble opinion) as voicing animation is a very particular skill. Nice to be proved wrong though, with both of the leads.

The main thing that made me VERY happy about the film, other than is fast pace, cracking wit, and beautiful animation of course, was its scary bits – or lack thereof. If you even mention Finding Nemo to any mother of small people – undoubtedly they will mention the fact that most of the time they need to fast forward over the scary bit where the wife/mother fish and all the baby egg fish, are eaten by the nasty, scary sturgeon fish. Though we need the highs and lows in a film, in terms of pace, I think more often than not the scary bits are just too scary for the little ones. This is NOT the case with Rapunzel. Even though there is one death and one near death, they are really managed well. All the scary thugs, it is discovered, are just misunderstood, cupcake making, piano playing, mime producing, unicorn collecting good guys underneath. They were much loved by the many boys in the audience of the screening I went to.

All in all the 7/8 year old boys I had with me thought it was hilarious (though they could have done with out the ‘kissing’ bits), the two 13 year old girls were divided – one loved it, the other thought it predictable. She did recant this with further prodding, as she realised this was the nature of a fairy story (some predictability). I, as the grown up, loved it and could happily sit though it again. And I can also think of quite a few 6 year old girls I will be recommending it to, or even possibly taking myself – just for the sake of investigation of course… just to see if it really is just as good the second and third time…

By Anya Brighouse, 30 November 2010.