Post by That Duckfan on Jan 23, 2022 0:17:17 GMT
Tangled (2010)
Directed by Nathan Greno, Byron Howard
Screenplay by Dan Fogelman | Head of Story Mark Kennedy
Original Songs by Alan Menken and Glenn Slater
Starring Mandy Moore and Delaney Rose Stein as Rapunzel
Featuring Zachary Levi, Donna Murphy, Ron Perlman, M. C. Gainey, Jeffrey Tambor, Brad Garrett, Paul F. Tompkins, Richard Kiel, Nathan Greno, Byron Howard, Tim Mertens
Academy Award for Best Original Song - Alan Menken and Glenn Slater - I See the Light - nominated
Disney have always prided themselves on being the most prestigious animation studio in the business. One way this shines through is in the budgets of their animated movies. Disney's earliest features, the ones that nearly bankrupted him, were multi-million dollar juggernauts: they cost as much as two whole millions to make.
As time went on, inflation rose, and the price of moviemaking went up. Starting in the 10s of millions in the 1980s and the 100s of millions by the turn of the millennium. By 2010, the six-minute short Tick Tock Tale cost 14 mil: the same as The Great Mouse Detective 24 years earlier. But that year's animated feature tops the charts: Tangled's 260 million-dollar budget is the greatest one of them all thus far.
That is to say, Tangled was a pretty big deal. Disney invested a lot of technology into this movie, and that decision had not always worked out well for them. The recent-cross pollination with Pixar was promising, but there's no such thing as a guaranteed success. But it broke through the half-a-billion mark, sealing the fate of Disney's traditional animation unit. The press happily proclaimed that Disney had found their mojo once more.
I'd always wanted to see a Rapunzel adaptation. It's an iconic fairy tale with a princess, and there weren't many of those left. The early concept art for the movie looked very promising. The resulting movie is very bright and richly decorated: the effects on Rapunzel's hair are amazing. Rapunzel herself is a bug-eyed monster and her hair is a separate character, but technically it's an achievement. Mandy Moore does a fine job as a singer, but she's not exactly the voice I had in mind. Then again, the only Princess voices I can recognize are Snow White, Belle, and Tiana. Not everyone is Paige O'Hara.
As to the movie itself, it has quite an intricate plot, but it seems to have been received better than The Princess and the Frog. The latter is structured more like a sitcom, whereas Tangled just follows its (anti-)heroes. It's an adventure, reminiscent of video games of its day. Flynn Rider acts like he escaped from the latest Assassin's Creed, and moves like it too. Other parts lean more towards fantasy, including the comedy thugs at the Snuggly Duckling. Together with Maximus the super-cop horse, they elevate the fantasy into a farce.
This, for me, is where the movie crosses over into Shrek territory. Shrek had had some effect on Disney for years, but it really shows in Disney's newest reimagining of a fairytale kingdom. It's an topsy-turvy adventure where the wise-cracking protagonist is the butt of all the jokes. Very cool, but I prefer the more traditional fantasy. I would like a universe that makes internal sense, unless we're actually doing a dumb comedy. And Tangled clearly wants to be more than a dumb comedy.
There are some very overt overtones in Rapunzel's relationship with Mother Gothel. Mother Gothel is a class-A narcissistic abuser, fluent in twisting and manipulating Rapunzel until she does what she wants her to do, and feels remorse for even having suggested anything else. It's a milestone in Disney villainy and I hate it. Sure, there's a good lesson in it. But it's a very specific one that I can't relate to, and pretty depressing to boot. This is not what I come to see a Disney movie for!
In this sense, I relate more to Flynn Rider, who took up the life of a rogue because the orphanage he grew up in was insipidly dull. That's my reason for watching these movies. I'm not saying it's the best reason, but it's mine. Flynn starts out as a lying, double-crossing thief, and incidentally the most sensible man in the movie for most of it. Unfortunately for him, this is a Fantasyland adventure and not an Adventureland fantasy.
Flynn would have made a great villain, but as it stands he's a decent hero, if a bit generic.
As for our actual villain, Mother Gothel, she spends a lot of time playing the good guy. Her motivation to stay eternally young seems to have been invented for the movie. It doesn't totally mesh with the main theme of exploration and adventure, except through some tenuous connection about danger and death. There's something about long vibrant hair and life as opposed to death, but she's mainly there as Rapunzel's fairy badmother. Which is fine, but not too much fun.
There isn't a whole lot in this movie that stirs me personally, but I have warmed to the depiction of the kingdom. It reminds me of the digital paintings of fantasy towns that were popular in this era, and they always look lovely. It's got a vibrant culture, too, even though they seem to have lost knowledge of the Americas in their maps. (They do know Mozart and mime!) Is Tangled a post-apocalyptic fairy tale? You decide.
I guess the real sign of a Disney Neo-Classical Revival is that I end up feeling out of step with its massive popularity. Maybe it's the direction; Bryan Howard also did Bolt. Tangled is an impressively competent piece of movie. But it doesn't stir me at any point in its 100-minute runtime. Then again, these days Tangled is massively overshadowed by its younger sister. Well, every adventure needs a stepping stone. Shucks, it's not bad. We all need to let our hair down once in a while.
I would like to know what brought Maximus and the thugs to save Flynn from a ropey end other than the traditional climactic save. Nothing in the movie indicates that he'd won their trust at any point beforehand. It's a big plot contrivance that steals the spotlight from Flynn himself, who seemed perfectly capable of saving himself earlier in the movie. I understand the need to show camaraderie, and they couldn't have Flynn upstage Rapunzel, but still. I wish he'd been able to show at least a little more skill.