Animated / Family
2010 / 100 min
RATING: 9/10
In the original Rapunzel tale, her hair is very long, but still just hair. In Tangled, these long tresses are used as a whip, swing, and even as rope to tie a bad guy up. But the biggest upgrade is that her hair now has the power to restore youth.
It’s this last addition that caught the attention of a very old witch. Our story starts with Witch Gothel whisking the baby Rapunzel away to a hidden tower deep in the woods. The magical restoration only works if it’s adminstered regularly, so the witch wants to keep Rapunzel forever, so the witch can be young forever.
Years later, a teenage Rapunzel is still in the tower, but not a captive exactly. As far as she knows Gothel is her mother, and if Mother says Rapunzel needs to stay in to stay safe, then that’s what Rapunzel is going to do. Even if she doesn’t like it. Then the roguish, handsome, thieving Flynn Ryder shows up, fleeing from this story’s version of the police. He’s the first man Rapunzel has ever seen, so, quite naturally, she hits him with a frying pan. Was it love at first “clunk”? Maybe not quite the first, but there were clunks to follow, so it might have been one of those.
Rapunzel convinces Flynn to help her explore the outside world. Soon this becomes a chase film, with Mother Gothel, and all the King’s men, trying to capture one or the other of the pair.
As I reread the original Rapunzel fairytale I was struck by how it’s more problematic than the Disneyfied retelling. The original has Rapunzel’s mom and dad stealing a plant, rapunzel, from their neighbor. Their neighbor is a witch, but still, when did stealing become something the good guys did? In the fairytale, Rapunzel gets impregnated by the prince before they are married, though children might not even realize (parents will clue in when Rapunzel talks about how, for some reason, her clothes are getting tight). So, Disney improved on the original by cutting these elements.
Cautions
The weirdest parts of this movie are a couple of brief appearances of a small, old, bearded outlaw who wears nothing but a diaper and wings. He seems to be imitating a baby Cupid. Really, really odd but, thankfully, very brief.
There’s lots of comic violence, with people getting hit repeatedly in the head with a frying pan. No big thing, except if you have kids young enough to think this is something they can imitate.
There is an element of magic, but played mostly in a negative light – the witch Mother Gothel is the villain of the piece.
Conclusion
A niece loves this film and introduced it to our daughters, and in the half-dozen times we’ve seen it since, we’ve all enjoyed it every time. It might be a bit too frantic and at times scary for the under-10 group, but for everyone else, this will be a very fun pick for family movie night.
Check out the trailer below.
