Tangled: Disney’s Latest Cartoon Modernized to a Fault

The Disney Studio has often taken well-known fairytales and tailored them for more modern consumption, or for more humor.

I think with Tangled  Disney missed.  Tangled is neither truly entertaining, nor particularly funny when compared to the studio’s earlier endeavors.

But it hardly seems to matter. The youngsters  I queried on the way out all liked the movie and were not even aware of the changes from “Rapunzel,”  the so-called “original” tale by the Brothers Grimm. Doesn’t anyone read Grimm’s tales to their kids anymore?

This version of “Rapunzel” of the famed: “Rapunzel, Rampunzel, let  down your hair,”—to enable people to climb up the tall  tower in which she is imprisoned—has the main climber being a bandit rather than the prince.  The other climber is the nasty enchantress who kidnapped the baby Rapunzel,  (here a princess) and then passes herself off as her protective mother. This meany makes use of her victim’s 70-foot, magically endowed tresses, strictly to keep herself from aging.

That, of course, is very up-to-date with the current emphasis on facelifts and the highly publicized 3-minute wrinkle-removing creams. 

Cartoon features of late all had some clever material for adults interjected, lest moms, and sometimes dads, get too bored and might become reluctant to take the kiddies to the movies, what with raised ticket prices, popcorn and all. 

Here, we more mature types, get a hint of possible hanky-panky going on in that tower. The bandit is pseudo-named Flynn Rider, reminding us of the child-rape court case of the swash-buckler Errol Flynn.  The best musical number of the film: “Mother Knows Best, ” belted nicely by Broadway’s Donna Murphy, who voices the enchantress, might just recall the long-running sit-com “Father Knows Best.”

By the way, it turns out that the Brother’s Grimm were not the first when their “Rapunzel” was published in 1812.  They are said to have taken it from a French fairytale “Persinette” first sighted in 1698.  That in turn may be based on a tale from Iran as early as the 10th Century AD.  And all of them had hints that the prince and Rapunzel had a baby in that tower!  Oh, well… Tangled does not go that far—something “Rapunzel” makes sure of when she knocks out the unexpected climber with an iron frying pan several times.

That is, of course, the least of the violence in the film.  As is usual in a Disney cartoon—whether Pixarish or fully animated—there are several quite scary moments.  Not all moms may fully approve of that, but today’s kids seem to shrug it right off.  After all, on-line games are often far more violent.

Rapunzel is voiced by Mandy Moore.  Flynn Rider (who turns out to be innocently named Eugene Fitzpatrick for some reason) is the voice of Zachary Levi. 

The two will be singing a duet of one of the songs from the film at the up-coming 2011 Academy Awards.  The song “I see the Light,”—music by Alan Menken; lyrics by Glenn Slater—has been nominated this year. 

Here are some comments from both parents and children leaving the movie theatre:

Emma Zieman of Edgemont, a 5th grader, thought the movie was very good.  She especially liked the funny parts when Rapunzel hits the bandit over the head with the frying pan.  When asked whether she goes on line, Emma told me that she plays games, emails and chats with friends on her MacBook.  I told her how to get to Patch!

Her father explained that Emma and her 13-year -old brother are true movie fans, so the family attends quite regularly. “Emma particularly likes the classic cartoons that have princesses in them.”

Marian Smith of Park City in the Bronx, brought her Godson Siri Wilson up here for Tangled.  I thought it interesting because she said: “I always come up here to the movies because I can park!” (Chalk that one up for Westchester and the conveniences we mostly take for granted!)

Siri who is 8, and is in third grade, loved Tangled.  Guess what, he thought the funniest and best part: Of course it was when the hero gets knocked out with the frying pan!