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Film Title: Tangled

 Best for ages: 6 &Up

Movie Website:  Click Here

Year Released: 2010

Rated: PG (US)

The Review

   When it comes to advancements in animation, no one does it better than Disney. Being the most successful company when it comes to this trade, Disney has become a household name even since Walt Disney created Mickey Mouse on November 18th, 1928.  Since then the Walt Disney Company has shined in all phases of entertainment. 

   Disney’s 50th animated feature also happens to be the most expensive animated feature ever produced. With a budget of 260 million dollars, Tangled not only takes the top spot in the world as most expensive animated film, but it is also the second most expensive film ever made behind another Disney venture, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End.  Its theatrical release was also a success worldwide grossing almost six hundred million dollars, even though it failed domestically to take in its budget at the box office.

    Tangled is largely based on the German fairy tale Rapunzel by the Brothers Grimm. In fact, the film was promoted under the title Rapunzel, and then later changed to Tangled before the film was released. The story is about a girl named Rapunzel that is trapped in a tower. She has very long hair that has never been cut. The story behind her hair and her imprisonment in the tower started when her mother, the Queen became ill while pregnant with Rapunzel. The Queens men, searching for a cure, find a magical healing flower, which was used for centuries by Gothel, an elderly woman, to stay young.  The flower heals the queen, however when she gives birth to Rapunzel they find that the powers of the plant are contained within the child’s hair. Yet, if her hair is cut, the powers no longer exist within the hair. Gothel makes this discovery and kidnaps Rapunzel, hiding her in the isolated tower deep in the forest, and raises her as her own child. Flynn Rider, a local thief has just stolen a golden tiara of the missing princess from the castle. While running from the law, he stumbles upon Rapunzel’s tower, where he is knocked out by Rapunzel with a frying pan. After a fight and some verbal arguments, the two slowly warm up to one another. Every year on her birthday, Rapunzel always see lights in the sky, which happen to be coming from the castle.  The people in the castle release the sky lights every year on her birthday hoping that the princess will see them and return home. Rapunzel makes a deal with Flynn, she will give him back his stolen tiara, if he helps her escape the tower and brings her to the place where the lights are coming from. He agrees and along with the royal horse, Maximus, they begin their journey. However, they will run into a lot of trouble with not only Gothel, but with people that Flynn has double crossed in the past.

       Tangled is a fun film, with a great musical score and very catchy songs that are featured throughout the film. The animation is beyond excellent, and in Blu-ray the colors and sound are truly incredible. The animation is probably the best I have seen in a motion picture. The whole look and feel is just fantastic. The story itself is also very good, and it packs a great solid action match up. One thing however that did bother me a bit was some of the film animated violence. My four year old daughter who is used to watching animated films and cartoons with some violence in them did not approve of a lot of what was going on in the film. When I asked her what bothered her about it she said there was too much fighting and that Rapunzel was very mean to Flynn. She also said Gothel was very scary. This kind of surprised me a bit being that she loves watching The Princess and the Frog, Cinderella, and Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, all of which have scarier villains in my opinion. In truth she is right about the animated violence, there is a lot of it in the film, but I don’t know about villains, I think it’s more of a personal thing for my daughter, because of the abuse the characters go though. However, this being a site that points out these kinds of things in these films, I have to warn all you parents as a precaution.

Tangled Trailer

   The Blu-ray/DVD combo pack has a few features such as the Original Storybook Opening, which is featured on both discs. The Blu-ray disc also features Deleted Scenes, a featurette titled Untangled: The Making Of A Fairy Tale, and plenty more little features here and there to top off the disc. There is not a ton of feature as with most Disney Blu-rays and DVD titles. But the film alone is worth its weight in golden hair.

   Overall, I found Tangled to be a great adventure film featuring a new Disney Princess that is not scared to take control and take out the bad guys. Rapunzel is a tough little princess and I liked that about the character. The film does have its fair share of animated violence and like I mentioned above my four year old did not care for it much. However, I think this is a film where it depends on the child. Some younger kids might be able to handle it, while others might not. I think a safe age range would be ages seven and up. On the technical side, the sound, score, music and especially the animation is out of this world. This is one that as an adult you will probably enjoy it more than your children will. It’s a must to add to that Disney collection you have growing on your shelf at home. I give the Disney crew that worked on this film a big giant thumbs up for the top notch production value.

BUY THIS MOVIE.