Tangled

Last Sunday night Scott, the children and I snuggled up together to watch Disney's new DVD release - Tangled.  This is the retelling of the classic fairytale Rapunzel. The story starts with the pretty little baby, Rapunzel, born to a King and Queen in a faraway land.  Baby Rapunzel, thanks to a magical plant that saved her mother's life, has glorious hair that has healing properties.  The wicked witch, Mother Gothel, covets Rapunzel's hair, because it will make her forever young, and steals into her room at night to cut off a piece.  However, the hair loses its magic properties when cut, so the horrible old woman steals the baby away to her tower and raises her as her own child.   Almost eighteen years later we meet Rapunzel, who is dying to get out of the tower.  Mother Gothel has kept Rapunzel locked away from the world, scaring her with stories of the evils outside the tower.  Rapunzel's one wish is to see the lantern festival that takes place every year on her birthday.  Mother Gothel leaves Rapunzel to go on a three day journey, and while she is gone, Rapunzel meets Flynn Rider, the dashing thief that promises to take her to see the festival.  And then the action begins! 

This was another great Disney movie.  The animation was really beautiful, especially the lantern scene.  Rapunzel's character was very well developed, and easy to relate to.  She really struggled with some of the decisions she had to make, and it was great to see her go back and forth with her decision making process.  Flynn was a charming character, very funny, not as well developed as Rapunzel, though.  It was nice to see a not-love-at-first-sight story for a change, but a relationship that started with friendship.  Mother Gothel was a villain who was very subtle.  The kids didn't find her very scary, but I found her method of manipulating Rapunzel very wicked.  What really stole the show for me was the secondary characters, Pasquale and Maximus.  Pasquale is Rapunzel's pet chameleon, and his methods of dealing with Flynn were very funny and creative.  Maximus is the horse of the Palace Guard in pursuit of Flynn.  Bereft of his rider, Maximus kicked it into overdrive as a primo law enforcement officer, and had some of the best scene stealing moments in the film.  The music in the movie was not as memorable as other Disney movies, I didn't walk away humming anything, which I usually do.  The whole family watched this movie, from the kids aged 9 to 18, and both parents.  We all found this to be a great family movie, one we could recommend to anyone. 

We'll give this one seven thumbs up!