Movie and Soundtrack Review: Tangled

Hello.

The Daddy-Man and I took Missy to see Tangled - the new Disney film about Rapunzel - last Friday.

Tangled movie poster

The characters are charming, the animation is wonderful, and I love the soundtrack.  However, I'm not really sure about the movie on the whole.

Flynn Rider from Disney's Tangled

See, I read somewhere that a year or two into production, the whole movie got reworked in an attempt to market it to young boys.  So they changed the charming prince into a wise cracking thief and decided to model their chase scenes off scenes from The Bourne Identity franchise.

My main problem comes from, what seems to me, a disjointedness in the way the story is told.  One moment it's all chase, dodge, laugh at the impotence of the lawmen and then it's all we're two people falling in love. Disney's desire to make this a boy friendly film that doesn't alienate girls just really threw me.  I guess Tangled fails to meld the two as seamlessly as Aladdin.  Aladdin is a story about a boy falling in love and then proving himself worthy.  Tangled is about, well, it's about a girl meeting the world and a boy that discovers how shallow he is and then grows up?  I'm not sure.

However, Tangled is a far cry from the Rapunzel I know.  In the story I read when a little girl, Rapunzel is forfeited to the witch/enchantress in exchange for the lettuce her mother craved while pregnant.  The witch wanted the child so she'd have someone that loved her - no magic hair involved.  The witch locks the girl in a tower and raises her.

Then one day, a prince hears the girl singing and finds out how to get inside.  The prince convinces Rapunzel to run away with him, but before they can enact their plan, Rapunzel happens to mention to the witch how tight her dress is lately and the witch figures out she's......pregnant!

In disgust, the witch puts Rapunzel in a wooden crate and ships her off to sea then lays in wait for the prince.  He shows up thinking they're going to elope and instead gets blinded by the witch and falls from the tower.  Meanwhile Rapunzel's box has landed on a distant shore and she's given birth to twins.

Years pass and a ragged beggar shambles into town.  He pauses by the well, listening to the twins playing, and Rapunzel comes out and recognizes him as the prince.  Her tears fall into his eyes and his health is restored.  The witch?  Well, when she pushed the prince out of the tower he took the hair rope with him and we're to assume she died of thirst and starvation, alone in the tower.

Now, this would have been one wild Disney movie.

Anyways, my favorite scene is when Flynn and Rapunzel are realizing that they're in love with each other. The cinematography is just breathtaking.

From Disney's Tangled

Who knew that Zachary Levi could sing like that?!  This soundtrack ranks right up there with other Alan Menken greats like The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast.  Mother Gothel's songs, voiced by Donna Murphy, are at times humorous, jeering, and haunting.  Her "Mother Knows Best" reprisal gives me chills!  Mandy Moore does an amazing job as Rapunzel and I ADORE her voice.  As for Zachary Levi, I'm just disappointed he didn't do more singing!

If you want to preview the soundtrack in it's entirety, go look up "Disney's Tangled Soundtrack" as posted by CaptainLadyAce on YouTube and you won't be disappointed.  The picture below this paragraph is what's used as the background for the posts on YouTube.  Missy has been bouncing back and forth between "Mother Knows Best," "I See The Light," and "When Will My Life Begin" since we found them on YouTube yesterday.  She's got them just about memorized.

From Disney's Tangled

Bottom line: I give the movie a 4 out of 5 since it's trying to be two things separately but never a cohesive whole.  The movie doesn't really have anything that should terrify a child (though Mother Gothel can get pretty creepy), so I'm pretty confident a 2.5 yr old could safely dig it.  The soundtrack gets a 5 out of 5 since it's simply amazing.  If I was going to take off for anything, it would be because of how the songs are arranged - in sequence with vocals, and then without vocals.  But, that's not really got anything to do with the music, so I don't feel justified in taking any points.  You can buy it on iTunes for $9.99, just FYI.

Between you and me, Missy is getting the soundtrack for Christmas.  Yeah - we like it that much.  So, go ahead, get trampled by a rhino...  :)