Disney’s 50th feature-length animated movie is their best in many years. Tangled recaptures the charm, humor, and spirit of the studio’s second renaissance, the late 80s/early 90s period that saw such hits as The Little Mermaid and Aladdin. Quite simply, I laughed and I cried, thoroughly engaged with the characters and the storytelling. And when I thought I had Tangled figured out, it gave me a couple of twists and some welcome sophistication. Touche, John Lasseter, touche.
There’s precious little to keep you interested in this hideous-looking and busily boring shit-fest of a film that is both a nadir for director Tim Burton’s creative trajectory and emblematic of everything wrong with Hollywood in the early 21st century. Much muchness? Indeed. Alice in Wonderland is the cinematic equivalent of a priapism.
This ultra-gitchy flick is probably unlike anything you’ve ever seen before, and that’s normally cause for celebration. But if you’re not into playing video games (like me), the film’s rapid pacing and excessively kinetic style may just leave you plain bewildered. On the other hand, the narrative is so simple that without the quick rhythm and psychedelic interludes, the film wouldn’t be very interesting. Director Edgar Wright is consistently clever and inventive in his execution, and does a spectacular job keeping you interested throughout a plot line that could easily have been a snooze.
Director Chris Columbus hacks his own Harry Potter films with this knockoff that substitutes wizards with Greek Gods, Quidditch with swordplay, and Hogwarts for a corny renaissance festival in the woods. Young star Logan Lerman, the illegitimate son of Justin Bieber and Zac Efron, strikes a nice pose but lacks charisma. The only actors who leave an impression are Brandon T. Jackson as Percy’s half-goat sidekick and Uma Thurman as a Gloria Swanson-esque Medusa. The script moves at a punishing pace, attempting (and failing) to short-shrift its first act and opting to steer clear of any and all grace notes, even when Percy’s mother is seemingly killed before his eyes. The second act is stuck in an episodic quest for magic pearls, and the third act spirals into a cloying, emotionally hollow father/son moment.
