Tangled (2010)

  Happy Thanksgiving!  In the spirit of not finding holiday-appropriate movies to watch, here's the newest Disney film!

This is the story of Rapunzel, the princess locked in the tower and forced to grow hair of a ridiculous length until she is rescued.  In this case, the story begins a couple of months before the princess is even born when the queen falls ill and requires the use of a magic flower to heal.  Unfortunately, the flower was being utilized by a selfish old lady to reverse the effects of aging so she's really pissed when they take it.  The princess is born and the old lady figures out that the girl's hair will perform the same trick but only if it's never cut, because if it is it loses its magic and turns brown instead of gold.

As a natural brunette, I have to say that particular plot-point rankled.

So she kidnaps the girl and locks her in a tower for eighteen years.  Right about then, the hero of the story (less of a hero and more of a thief on the run for stealing the Lost Princess' crown) climbs the tower and Rapunzel sees her ticket out.  From there, it's a pretty standard Quest movie.

This is the 50th animated film in the Disney Classics series and I have to say, it felt a little flat.  Not to say it was bad, because it wasn't, it just didn't reach the heights of say Aladdin or Beauty and the Beast.  There isn't one memorable song in the whole movie.  The only one that's close (in that I remember bits of it) is the "I've Got a Dream" song when they're in the Snuggly Duckling.  That part is adorable.

The animation is beautiful.  The mix of CGI and hand-drawn makes for a very deep world even if you go the 2D version over 3D.  And I believe that this is the first Disney animated movie to show a character bleeding, which is a stylistic change to say the least.

So I didn't walk out thinking it was a travesty but I'm probably not going to rush and buy it when it hits DVD either.  Which is a shame, really, since I own about 80% of all the animated Classics and I hate when my average starts to fall.