Based on the classic story of Rapunzel (pretty young girl with extraordinarily long hair trapped in a tower, yadda yadda), Tangled is an entertaining and whimsical kids’ flick—and it avoids falling into the kind of irritating fairy-tale cutesiness that only a 4-year-old could appreciate.
The first thing that Disney did right was to hire Mandy Moore as the voice of Rapunzel instead of fucking Hayden Panty-liner or Jessica Biel or some other Hollywood starlet whose overwrought shrieks strike the ear like the sound of a puppy being attacked by a pit bull. (Yet these women still manage to get starring roles in feature full-length cartoons these days—who is in charge here, people?)
The second thing they did right was to take it easy on the requisite goofy sidekicks, who can often come off as more obnoxious than endearing. In Tangled, the sidekicks are both animals—a horse that seems to think it’s a dog (har har!) and a chameleon that makes the cutest squeaking noises you’ve ever heard (even when he gets kicked across the room! Awwww!)—and not once does their presence make you want to take a jumbo eraser to the script. Kudos.
Sadly, though, Tangled‘s musical numbers aren’t nearly as memorable as the Disney songs that permanently branded our brains when we were kids. I still get songs from The Little Mermaid stuck in my head, decades later, yet I already can’t recall a single chorus from Tangled even though I saw the movie less than 48 hours ago. And how can you write a script with a chameleon costar, yet not make a single Boy George reference? Come on! (I realize Boy George is hardly in the wheelhouse of Tangled‘s target audience, but it would’ve been nice to acknowledge that people born before 1985 are going to have to watch it with their kids.)
Regardless of its handful of flaws, Tangled is a cute film, and its humor is slightly wittier than your average princess movie (though on the Disney scale, it hardly compares to Up, WALL•E, or even Bolt). You probably won’t hate it. You might even laugh! Unless your name is Jaycee Dugard, in which case the whole “kidnapped as a child and held captive for several years” premise might not be so entertaining.
I liked your review right up until the part where you took a dig at Jaycee Dugard.
I can say that “joke” at a bar and get away with it because it’s only spoken and said around friends. Putting it in print under your name and getting paid for it simply makes you a bitch.
I’ll see the movie regardless but I hope you choke on spaghetti.
Well that last line made me laugh, so I guess I’m a bitch too. Hooray!
Great, now I have the Little Mermaid soundtrack stuck in my head.