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Tangled

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.

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Family, Movie Reviews

Babes in Toyland

Family /Musical 1961 / 105 minutes Rating: 7/10 Babes in Toyland stars all your children's nursery rhyme favorites. There's Little Jack Horner, Simple Simon and the pieman, Jack and Jill, Little Bo Peep and her sheep, and of course, Mother Goose herself. That might make this the perfect way to introduce your little ones to the musical genre. Our story begins with preparations for a wedding. Tom (as in, "Tom, Tom, the Piper's son") and Mary (quite contrary) are going to get married and the whole village is so excited they just have to dance and sing! There has to be a villain, of course, and the black-hatted, black-caped, black-elevator-shoe-clad Barnaby Barnacle is such an over-the-top meanie that only the youngest of children might be scared by him. He knows something Mary doesn't – that when Mary is married, she's going to inherit a large sum, so Barnaby wants to marry Mary, instead of Tom! To that end, he hires two henchmen – the very large Gonzorgo, and the entirely silent Roderigo – to, first, kidnap Tom and throw him into the sea, and then steal Mary's sheep so that, impoverished and alone, she'll be forced to marry Barnaby. Crooks that they are, the two henchmen instead sell Tom to the gypsies so as to get paid twice. And that sets the scene for Tom's eventual return. But there are still sheep to recover, and that leads to an almost "second chapter" for the film where Tom and Mary head into the ominous "Forest of No Return" to search for the sheep. There they find "the Toyman" who is a Santa-like figure, making toys for girls and boys. Further hijinks ensue, with Barnaby still trying to marry Mary, but this time using all sorts of toys and gadgets from the Toyman's workshop to try to put an end to Tom. When he gets his hands on a shrinking ray he thinks he can finally cut Tom down to size. It turns out, though, that even pipsqueak Tom, with the help of a toy army, is more than a match for Barnaby! Cautions Not much to note here: the talking trees in the Forest of No Return were the only truly scary characters for my sensitive 7-year-old, and it helped to assure her that they turn out to be not so bad after all. Also, Tom briefly plays the part of a gypsy fortune-teller, and that might have been problematic if it wasn't all just a prank on Barnaby. Conclusion The acting is over-the-top and the characters are all from nursery rhymes so the target audience is clearly children. But there's so much color and energy and action that older kids and parents will enjoy it too. ...