ANI-MOVIES, *Tangled

For their 50th full-length animated theatrical feature, this take on the tale of Rapunzel had Disney going back to the well for a standard "Disney Princess" story, but with taking a hint from Dreamworks by giving it a modern sense of humor to it. Tangled managed to bring about a third renaissance to Disney's non-Pixar animated films, and also helping them bring themselves out of the dust that their Pixar releases had left them in recent years. First time directing for Disney regulars Nathan Greno and Bryon Howard(who also directed Bolt), this was changed from the title character to Tangled to make it seem like less of a "girly" picture that the whole family could enjoy.

In a fairy tale-like world(which is supposed to be in the same universe as Frozen!)an old woman named Gothel finds a magic flower that fell from the sun to continuously rejuvenate herself, but the nearby kingdom's queen was sick while prior to giving birth. The king had his knights find famed magic flower, and its healing power was transferred to the newly born Princess Rapunzel. Gothel then kidnaps Rapunzel and spirited her away in a hidden tower for 18 years where she made the princess think that Gothel was her only family while using Rapunzel's magical flowing blonde hair to keep her youth. One day, a cunning thief named Flynn Rider steals the Princess' tiara that the kingdom kept in case she ever returned, and the dashing egotist is chased into the woods where he seeks cover in the secret tower. Flynn is knocked out by Rapunzel and her pet chameleon Pascal while Gothel is out, and he gets roped into helping Rapunzel to escaping her tower so she can see some lanterns the kingdom set out every year on the birthday of their missing princess. Flynn concedes, and leads Rapunzel to a tavern filled with thugs to try and scare her off. The plucky long-haired blonde instead gets all the ruffians to doing a sensational sing-a-long about following their dreams. All this noise has the royal guard horse Maximus on their trail, so Flynn and Rapunzel go into a daring escape where the healing power of the magic hair is revealed. Maximus eventually tracks them down, but Rapunzel convinces the bloodhound horse into letting them visit the kingdom's lantern celebration. While touring the city, Rapunzel and Flynn start to recognize their romantic feelings for each other, even though Gothel arrives and convinces Rapunzel that he abandoned her for his original prize. Flynn was instead knocked out and captured by the royal guards, while Rapunzel goes back to her tower and ends up figuring out on her own that she's the lost princess. Flynn breaks out thanks to his ruffian bar buddies with Maximus and makes his way to Rapunzel as she confronts Gothel's deception. Gothel stabs Flynn as he arrives, but Rapunzel talks Gothel into letting her heal him with her hair, where Flynn uses a piece of glass to cut off the magic hair, reducing the long blonde hair to brown. With the magic gone, Gothel age catches up with her as she falls to her death, but the last of Rapunzel's magic heals Flynn in the stereotypical "magical death tears" trope. Rapunzel reunites with her real parents, and Flynn cleared of any past crimes.

The movie ends on the note that Rapunzel and Flynn would someday get married, which was followed up in the short Tangled Ever After, but this gave way to an ongoing animated series started by made-for-TV movie done in 2-D format. Tangled itself at this time is the most expensive animated movie ever made, and it proved to be Disney's breakthrough in non-Pixar CGI productions. Alan Menken's music numbers are memorable, and the casting is something too, especially Mandy Moore as Rapunzel(who otaku original spurned for playing Aerith in Kingdom Hearts!). It caters a little less to children than other standard Disney flicks, which helped get more than just families showing up to watch it in theaters. Even if you're a pure cynic of happy-go-lucky fairy tales, there's more than likely something in this for you to get a laugh out of.