Day 50: Tangled

Tangled (2010)

Starring: Mandy Moore, Zachary Levi, Donna Murphy, Brad Garrett, Ron Perlman, Jeffrey Tambor, Richard Kiel, M.C. Gainey, Paul F. Tompkins, Delaney Rose Stein

Songs: "When Will My Life Begin?," "Mother Knows Best," "I've Got a Dream," "I See the Light," "Healing Incantation," "Something that I Want"

Tangled is the fiftieth Disney animated film.  It is based on the German fairy tale of Rapunzel, and tells the story of a princess who is kidnapped by an evil woman who wishes to use the powers of the girl's magical healing hair to stay young forever.  Rapunzel grows up, locked away in a tower and longs to be free and to see the glowing lights that appear on her birthday every year.  When a thief named Flynn Rider ends up in her tower, Rapunzel gets him to guide her to the lights.

This story, like many other Disney films, has roots in the late 1930s.  Disney wished to adapt this story to film just after Snow White, but they found certain difficulties in writing a compelling story treatment and the projects was shelved.  Glen Keane revived the idea in the mid-1990s and began work on the story.  It was to be called Rapunzel Unbraided, as one of the challenges the fairytale presented when adapting it to the screen is that much of it takes place in the tower, and the idea was to put a new spin on it and take her out of the tower.  The Alan Menken score and soundtrack too inspiration from 1960s folk music and medieval music.  Visual inspiration for the movie came from oil paintings like the circa 1767 "The Swing" by Jean-Honoré Fragonard.

This is a really great movie overall.  It's cute, entertaining, fun... and it's beautiful to look at and to listen to.  The love story is compelling, and Rapunzel is a very relatable character.  While I don't enjoy this one quite as much as The Princess and the Frog, I really do love it and appreciate it.

What I Liked: There's a lot of things, but if I was to single out one thing, it would be the horse Maximus acting like a dog.  That's hilarious to me.

What I Disliked: Nothing really.

Should You Watch This Movie: Definitely.