Tangled

I've crossed off another Oscar-nominated film off my list. I think the only one I have left is The Tempest (which was nominated for Best Costumes), excluding the Best Foreign Language films. Last night I saw Tangled, which had a Best Song nomination.

Tangled is Disney's 50th animated feature, and if you're doubtful of that, they include a special feature on the DVD that, in under two minutes, counts them all down with a short clip from each one. They don't, however, provide the titles, so there's that dubious era of The Black Cauldron, The Great Mouse Detective, and The Rescuers Down Under where I couldn't quite identify them all.

Tangled, while not in the league of films during the Disney renaissance of Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King, would certainly be in the top half. It's unusual in that it basically centers around three characters. The last film, The Princess and the Frog, suffered from too many characters, but this one has three human beings and one nonspeaking chameleon to worry about, which makes the action streamlined and less trying for an adult, as the goofy sidekicks are left out.

Based on the Grimm fairy-tale of Rapunzel, the film is about a mean old lady who kidnaps a princess because her hair has magic properties that keep her forever young. The old lady keeps her locked in a tower, and the girl knows no other life that what's in that tower. Her hair, which never must be cut or it will lose its power, has grown long enough to reach the ground from the tower window, and she uses it to haul her faux mother up and down. But Rapunzel, despite longing to visit the world, stays inside.

Then a roguish thief, fleeing the law (led by a horse who seems to think he's a dog) stumbles upon the tower and climbs up inside. After Rapunzel hits him over the head a few times with a frying pan, he agrees to take her out of the tower. The two will of course be attracted to each other, Rapunzel will find her rightful parents, and the old lady will be defeated, and none of that is a spoiler to anyone who has ever seen a Disney film.

The music, by the venerable Alan Menken, is pretty good. The nominated song, "I See the Light," should have won this year, even though Menken has already won something like eight Oscars. There's also a lively number in a rough-and-tumble bar where barbarians and thugs sing about their dreams--one fellow with a hook for a hand wants to be a concert pianist, another wants to be a mime.

The three principle voice actors are all fine, with Broadway star Donna Murphy doing a great job as the wicked old crone. Pop star Mandy Moore is Rapunzel, and Zachary Levi, previously unknown to me, is the thief.

I should add, from my position as dirty old man, that Rapunzel is perhaps the hottest animated character in a nonadult cartoon since Jessica Rabbit, and for my taste, she's even hotter. She looks like she should be strolling around the Playboy mansion. I also think the animator of her character has a foot fetish. She's always barefoot, gets a lot of close-ups of her feet, and they are just about perfect.