At Last I See The Light - Tangled

50 – Tangled

The 50^th feature of Disney's animated classics is 2010's Tangled. This is one Disney movie I'm very familiar with and really enjoyed before I started these reviews so I wondered how I would like it after watching all these Disney movies. The story is a retelling of the fairy tale of Rapunzel with quite a few modern changes. It begins when a girl, Rapunzel, is born when her mother is saved by a magic flower. An old woman, Gothel, had been using that magic flower to keep herself alive so she kidnaps Rapunzel when she sees that her hair now holds that same power. She locks Rapunzel away in a tower and raises her while she uses Rapnuzel's magic hair to keep her young forever. Rapunzel yearns to leave the tower and see these “floating lights” she sees every year on her birthday. She finally gets her chance one day, when she meets Flynn Rider.

Rapunzel and Flynn are two really great lead characters. Rapunzel is extremely sheltered but shows herself to be quite persistent and brave when she needs to be. She tries to see good in people and is fascinated by the outside world. Flynn, on the other hand, is a thief who seems to only want riches and to be alone. Flynn, reluctantly, agrees to take her to see the “floating lights” which turn out to be lanterns that are released every year for the lost princess. Their relationship is really interesting too since it evolves in such a natural way. They start with very different goals and slowly open up to each other as the story goes on. Their relationship lets Flynn be who he really is and see what he really wants from life. Rapunzel literally has a whole world open up before her when she meets Flynn.

Mother Gothel is the old woman who kidnaps Rapunzel and seals her away in the tower. She's obviously the villain but she has an interesting way of doing what she does. She actually acts like Rapunzel's mother and seems to take reasonably good care of her. She tries to warn Rapunzel of the dangers of the outside world to make sure Rapunzel never leaves, but Rapunzel is too curious. She may not be as scary or have quite as malicious goals as some other Disney villains but it almost makes what she does worse. She is totally selfish and only wants Rapunzel to keep herself young. She's willing to do anything to get that too.

Rapunzel and Flynn definitely aren't alone, however. Pascal is Rapunzel's chameleon best friend. He appears every now and then and is mostly comic relief but he's funny and doesn't really detract from the movie. Maximus, however, is a way more interesting character to me. He's a horse that is part of a group of soldiers that are hunting Flynn down for something he stole. Despite being a horse, he acts more like a dog and has an intense sense of justice. He and Flynn have a great back and forth through the whole movie until Rapunzel finally has them make a truce for one day on her birthday. From there, you really see how Max starts to see who Flynn really is and they soften up to each other. There are also a great group of “ruffians” that Rapunzel finds all have dreams of their own and support Rapunzel.

This movie has a really great “classic” style about it. It feels like they really nailed the fairy tale setting but filled it with more modern ideas and characters. The music by Alan Menken is fantastic as usual. As a Disney musical, the music really works and none of it feels out of place. Some of the humor doesn't really work very well but I wonder if that's mostly because I've seen this movie so many times. More times than not, however, the humor is fantastic, especially scenes with Flynn or Max.

They really kept the themes in this movie simple too. The big idea is the classic idea of following your dreams. Rapunzel has a simple dream of seeing the floating lanterns while Flynn begins with a very selfish dream. As Rapunzel chases after her dream, Flynn realizes that may not be what he wants after all. It's interesting too because The Princess and the Frog had a theme very similar to this where Tiana realizes that she wants love as much as she wants to fulfill her dreams but didn't get it across well at all. The themes here are presented way better and there's no confusion as to what they're going after.

Overall, I still love this movie. It definitely has its flaws. It's not overly ambitious but it does what I think Disney does best, take classic fairy tales and make great movies out of them. It keeps things simple and makes sure to put the characters in front of the message because if you don't like the characters you won't care about the message. I think it is the perfect movie to represent their 50^th feature.

50 down. 3 to go.