Disney's 50th animated motion picture, Tangled, takes place in a faraway land, long, long ago...in a forgotten kingdom, where the queen was very sick. She was about to have her first child and so the king ordered everyone to search for a fabled golden flower. The flower was unique and grew on a cliffside, where an old hag had kept it hidden so she could use the power of the flower (that's right, flower-power is an all-consuming theme, here...) for herself.
The flower is discovered anyway and the queen is healed! The king and queen then welcome a golden-haired daughter into the world. But the old hag had other plans. Seeing that the flower had been fused with the child, she kidnapped the baby princess and locked her away in a clandestine tower where she raised the girl as her own. The old hag named the princess Rapunzel...and so the story turns.
We enter the "real" story as Rapunzel nears her 18th birthday; we see, through the magic Disney animation, that young Rapunzel is extraordinarily talented...she paints, cooks, reads six books a day, studies astronomy, sews, plays musical instruments, swings from the ramparts like an accomplished gymnast...and she can sing, too!
Mandy Moore voices the princess while NBC's Chuck, Zach Levi, voices her love interest, Flynn Ryder. Flynn was renamed from the original Brothers Grimm character "Bastion," in honor of Errol Flynn, who, like Marvel's Tony Stark, shares characteristics with the historic Hollywoodian.
Some of the best "drawn" characters are the animals a la classic Disney, like Maximus the horse or the chameleon, Pascal. There's also a fun scene with singing vikings, tough guys and thieves set in a tavern called--you guessed it--the "Snuggly Duckling."
The six-year, $260-million project reaped close to $150-million in its opening weekend in the States. It also opened to a whopping $9-million in Russia.
The sincere, if not sometimes canned, Disney-romp, Tangled gets high marks for putting forward a "real" female hero who emerges like any good Campbellian hero from an insular world only to face trials and come out "mastering" two very separate worlds with a turn-around transformation of consciousness that sweeps evil under the proverbial rug with which good always wipes its feet.
Very much a "Little Mermaid" varaiation with music by Alan Menken, Tangled earns a 9/10 on the Housel-scale. A fun holiday film the whole family can enjoy, Tangled, attempts to kick up female heroes a notch or two while maintaining the "Disneyness" so many of us have come to know and love.
The flower is discovered anyway and the queen is healed! The king and queen then welcome a golden-haired daughter into the world. But the old hag had other plans. Seeing that the flower had been fused with the child, she kidnapped the baby princess and locked her away in a clandestine tower where she raised the girl as her own. The old hag named the princess Rapunzel...and so the story turns.
We enter the "real" story as Rapunzel nears her 18th birthday; we see, through the magic Disney animation, that young Rapunzel is extraordinarily talented...she paints, cooks, reads six books a day, studies astronomy, sews, plays musical instruments, swings from the ramparts like an accomplished gymnast...and she can sing, too!
Mandy Moore voices the princess while NBC's Chuck, Zach Levi, voices her love interest, Flynn Ryder. Flynn was renamed from the original Brothers Grimm character "Bastion," in honor of Errol Flynn, who, like Marvel's Tony Stark, shares characteristics with the historic Hollywoodian.
Some of the best "drawn" characters are the animals a la classic Disney, like Maximus the horse or the chameleon, Pascal. There's also a fun scene with singing vikings, tough guys and thieves set in a tavern called--you guessed it--the "Snuggly Duckling."
The six-year, $260-million project reaped close to $150-million in its opening weekend in the States. It also opened to a whopping $9-million in Russia.
The sincere, if not sometimes canned, Disney-romp, Tangled gets high marks for putting forward a "real" female hero who emerges like any good Campbellian hero from an insular world only to face trials and come out "mastering" two very separate worlds with a turn-around transformation of consciousness that sweeps evil under the proverbial rug with which good always wipes its feet.
Very much a "Little Mermaid" varaiation with music by Alan Menken, Tangled earns a 9/10 on the Housel-scale. A fun holiday film the whole family can enjoy, Tangled, attempts to kick up female heroes a notch or two while maintaining the "Disneyness" so many of us have come to know and love.
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