(this review does not contain spoilers)

Though the film’s opening narration had me skeptical for a few minutes, I warmed up to this re-imagining of Rapunzel very quickly. Disney has had a long history of exceedingly well-done adaptations of classic fairy tales. Short bedtime stories become involved, delightful, and memorable adventures with lively characters and thoughtful execution. Tangled is no exception. What does the average person know of the Grimm brothers’ classic? A girl with long hair is trapped in a tower. But why? I don’t think many would remember. But Disney starts it off right — the “why” comes first; the “girl with long hair” comes later. And I found myself somewhat surprised at the end of Tangled’s dramatic introduction. We have a princess, a villain, and a hero, but their relationships with one another felt fresh and unique, at least in the context of the story of Rapunzel.

In retrospect, the mother-daughter relationship Mother Gothel imposes on Rapunzel should not have been surprising — evil stepmothers is as old a tradition as princesses — but that Rapunzel did not resent her from the very beginning gave it a dimension it might not have otherwise had. Rapunzel believes that Gothel keeps her in the tower for her own benefit and safety and that her desire to escape the tower is selfish. More than anything else, this makes Rapunzel easy to relate to. She has glorious, magical hair, and she is a princess stolen from her kingdom… but she is normal and vulnerable and human because she loves who she knows to be her mother and doesn’t want to break her heart by disobeying.

Gothel’s own selfish intentions are made obvious to the audience from the start, and as the movie progresses, she has some fantastic one-liners to really drive in that point. In songs like “Mother Knows Best” especially (yes, this is a musical), she phrases acceptably protective sentiments in rather devious and sinister ways. That Rapunzel cannot see through the witch’s words sets the stage for an eventual, powerful reveal, but in the meantime, the tension and dramatic irony is great!

Flynn Rider is the humorous antihero and reminded me a little of Aladdin. A manipulative thief, he is nonetheless good-willed and likable… in part due to his blatant willingness to facilitate jabs at the fourth wall. Despite his less-than-heroic origins though, Flynn’s personality does not stray far from the role he needed to fill, and his overwhelming good makes it difficult to doubt his motives, even when they’re called into question. Still, his interaction with the other characters are great and make for some hilarious exchanges. Rapunzel saves him just as many times as he saves her, and the conflicts he has with both Maximus the horse and Pascal the chameleon lead to the best laughs of the movie. Flynn is your typical bad boy gone good, but the archetype is handled well, and Tangled certainly benefits from it.

The supporting cast, especially aforementioned animals, is great. Really, there isn’t much to say beyond that. They are awesome, hilarious, and have very endearing personalities. Perfect for animal mascots! …Or crazy, intimidating, manly thieves hiding out in the forest! They were kind of cute too.

All of the technical aspects of the movie are excellent. The animation was smooth and lively, and it certainly proves that great movies exist in both new and old techniques and technology. The way Rapunzel’s hair was handled in general was a lot of fun to see, considering the huge challenge it must have been. Yes, it came in variable lengths depending on the practicality of the scene, but still! It was a real treat to watch it flow and move and glow. I did not watch the movie in 3D, but I have actually heard good reports about it. I suppose it’s inevitable that the 3D trend work its way up to something worthy of paying a few extra bucks for though.

Disney’s vocal talents are always top notch, and here, Mandy Moore (Rapunzel), Donna Murphy (Mother Gothel), and Zachary Levi (Flynn Rider) do not disappoint. The guy who does all of Maximus’s horse neighs and grunts should also get top honors — they were wonderfully expressive and conveyed the character’s sentiments exactly. The songs are charming, fit with the flow of their scenes, as well as the dialogue they’re bookended with and Alan Menken’s score.

“When Will My Life Begin” is basic introductory fare, but does well to set the stage for the rest of the movie, and Moore does a great job sharing the emotion and hopes of Rapunzel. “Mother Knows Best” is creepy and conniving in the best sort of way. “I’ve Got a Dream” is chorused by some of the most amusing minor characters and set in a really fun scene in general — a little like Mulan’s “A Girl I’m Fighting For.” …And “I See The Light” is beautiful, both musically and visually — it’s one of the most gorgeous scenes in the entire movie, and something Rapunzel has made the audience emotionally invested in wanting to see. (Also, I am a sucker for pretty duets.)

As the story progresses into the late game, Tangled conforms more with fairy tale sensibilities. The characters fall in love (in a day). The villain reveals herself. The hero is tasked with rescuing the maiden. It’s a children’s movie after all, and Rapunzel is a fairy tale. But by then, you have long since become attached to the characters, and it didn’t really matter that things became a little predictable. It helps that the execution doesn’t slack off at all — the emotional tension leading up to the final confrontation is great and wonderfully dramatic. Even knowing that it will turn out all right by virtue of being a Disney movie, there is a moment where you really do worry.

Overall, Tangled is a very fun movie and I highly recommend it to everyone. It’s something both adults and kids can enjoy. The story has all of the great quirks that make Disney fairy tales unique, and the characters are engaging in ways that make you really want them to succeed. I was pleasantly surprised, especially after last year’s Princess and the Frog was only “okay.” It is entertaining and moving in a way I haven’t seen from a Disney movie in a while, and only the outrageous ticket price of movies these days deters me from seeing it again in theatres.

The periodic trailers and behind-the-scenes looks released for the Princess and the Frog all looked amazing. The character designs felt like they would have fit in well with the Disney movies of the early 90′s and the animation was similarly nostalgic. In addition to being a throwback to the animated features I grew up with, I was happy to see another film focused on a slice of American history and culture, in this case, the French Quarter of New Orleans before and after World War I. The music and musical style were less of a concern for me since movies like Tarzan, Lilo & Stitch and the Emperor’s New Groove worked perfectly fine without much, if any, bursting into song. Still, the last Disney musical was Mulan, and Mulan was all kinds of amazing, so anticipation remained extremely high for this film. I finally got to see it yesterday.

STORY - Walking into the movie, I knew I was going to be in it more for the technical aspects than anything else. The princess movies had never been amongst my favorites of what Disney had to offer and I wasn’t expecting to be wowed by the story in Princess and the Frog. As such, it was no surprise that the movie’s plot was basic, cliche and a bit predictable: girl has dream, girl works hard to achieve dream but it’s just out of reach, girl then gets caught up in some crazy nonsense, falls in love with boy and somehow this results in the dream also getting realized. It’s a typical, romanticized children’s tale storyline. But despite that that was pretty much what I had expected, I was still a little disappointed.

Part of it was because the villian(s) aren’t nearly as prominent and the obstacles the protagonists faced weren’t nearly as dangerous or thrilling as they could have been. Tiana and Prince Naveen spend very little time actually facing the bad guys. The main, immediate problem the protagonists struggle with is the fact that they’ve been cursed into frogs. Sure, there is the Shadow Man that put the curse in place, but neither protagonists spends all that long with him. Instead of fighting him directly, they journey through the Louisiana swamp looking for another voodoo capable person to help them. Almost all the characters they meet along the way are friendly and work to help them along. And there is no build up to an epic final fight because there really isn’t a final fight. Compare this with the various hurdles Jafar sets for Aladdin. And their final fight. Pretty disappointing.

It wasn’t all bad though. I was very impressed at how the classic tale was reworked to fit the setting and characters. 1920′s New Orleans isn’t the first place you’d think to set an adaptation of a princess story, just like 1980′s New York isn’t the first place you’d think to set an adaptation of Oliver Twist, but damn if Disney didn’t make it work. Obviously, there were no real princesses in that time and place, but the Princess and the Frog played around and made it work in an almost tongue-in-cheek fashion; I was especially pleased at how the traditional princess and curse-breaking tropes were toyed with at the end. It made me smile.

CHARACTERS - The movie’s main protagonist, Tiana, is very much the archetypal strong-willed woman. She knows what she wants and is hyperfocused, working single-mindedly towards her goal. She isn’t easily threatened, but can be distracted by the intensity of her own dreams. She is quick-witted and adaptable, as well as sympathetic and a good role-model: the ideal character to lead a movie like this, but really not that interesting to an older viewer like myself, especially since she doesn’t really change during the course of the movie. She just falls in love. (In like, two days.)

Prince Naveen is similarly stale, though he’s also accompanied by some unfortunate logical flaws. Growing up as royalty, he was spoiled and never had to do anything for himself. For some reason though, he desired “freedom” (from what?) and for some other reason, he was disowned by his family (why? Wikipedia has some reasons, but I don’t think the movie ever said anything specific), so he ends up in New Orleans penniless and intending to marry a wealthy girl for money (and thereby grounding his own freedom again? what?). Predictably, Naveen learns a bit of humility and gains a little usefulness during the course of the movie. Predictably.

Dr. Facilier, also known as the Shadow Man, had the potential to be the most interesting character in the movie, but this is hindered by not quite enough screen time or backstory. He has a few lines of complaint here and there, but there doesn’t seem to be a point in his past where he was morally offended by something or someone that spurred him to want domination of New Orleans. His interesting relationship with people “on the other side” is also never fully explained, which was supremely disappointing considering their awesome musical number together. There were so many things that could have spiced up both Dr. Facilier and his collaborators’ roles, such as giving some of the shadows (aside from Dr. Facilier’s own) personalities and giving Lawrence, Naveen’s backstabbing servant, some ulterior goals.

The secondary cast was not particularly notable; they were there, occasionally humorous, but too simple to be called good or bad. I saw the movie with several people though, including a New Orleans native who was apparently upset at some of the stereotypical characters portrayed in the movie. Personally, I don’t think the portrayals were necessarily unfair since all regions have their stereotypes and most of them are grounded in some sort of reality, including the bumbling backwater hicks. I doubt anyone will really come away with a negative impression of the area, in any case. I mean, I wasn’t offended by the hilariously stereotypical gender roles presented in Mulan since you know, they’re kind of true.

ART & ANIMATION – Everything was gorgeous, just like I thought it would be. Seriously, you don’t realize just how different 2D animated characters look until you go a while without seeing them and are suddenly sent back. Disney was amazingly successful at recapturing a number of styles it had left behind, and Princess and the Frog included several short sequences animated in a simpler, blocky color, storybook style, such as for the song “Almost There.” But while all the characters were animated traditionally throughout the movie, most of the backgrounds had been painted digitally and there were some digital special effects. This was really fine though, especially since it allowed for some really visually interesting scenes involving Shadow Man’s shadow and shadowy minions. The digital backgrounds complimented the characters fine and didn’t detract from the film in any way.

The character designs were pretty standard. Tiana is pretty much what anyone might have thought of given the prompts “African-American” and “Disney princess.” Prince Naveen is just the next in a long line of Disney princes, though his frog form reminded me a lot of Warner Brother’s Michigan J. Frog. In contrast, Dr. Facilier actually has a pretty fun design and reminds me vaguely of a cross between Jafar and Jack Skellington. This compliments the uniqueness of his character, but while his personality and backstory aren’t really given the attention they could had have, Facilier’s design is bold and has many clever little elements, such as his skull mask. Like their personalities, the secondary characters didn’t leave a big impression visually either, but despite that, I was very pleased with both the art and animation in this movie.

MUSIC - As with the animation, the Princess and the Frog attempts to capture the musical success of its 90′s predecessors with music by Randy Newman and lyrics by Glenn Slater. Maybe I’m just a little out of touch with musicals, but some of the film’s songs felt a little awkward and forced. As a sort of opening song, “Down in New Orleans” wasn’t too bad, but the beginning of Tiana’s first solo, “Almost There” didn’t seem to mesh very well with the scene it was placed in. Thankfully, as the song progressed, the tune became catchier and more attractive and the end of the song seemed to suit the scene much better. Dr. Facilier’s solo, “Friends on the Other Side” was probably the best song in the movie; it was a lot of fun both lyrically and visually and is one of the main reasons I wish the character had gotten more attention than he received. “When We’re Human” seemed like a pretty typical Disney song. “Gonna Take You There” and “Ma Belle Evangeline” were both fairly decent and more nostalgic feeling in mood and style. “Dig a Little Deeper” reminded me somewhat of the “Morning Report” song Disney inserted into some DVD re-release of the Lion King… which is not a compliment.

I really don’t feel like Princess and the Frog benefited from being a musical, but I guess it really didn’t detract from it that much. Either way, Anika Rose’s “Almost There” won’t be the next Elton John’s “Can You Feel The Love Tonight” or Christina Aguilera’s “Reflection.” Newman’s general score for the movie was pretty okay, but come on, Alan Menken would have been a much better choice of composer.

OVERALL - If an older someone were to watch the Princess and the Frog after all the Disney feature films of the 90′s, they might be dismissive and unimpressed. As a simple movie aimed at children, it’s very solid, but even then, compared to the previous decade’s most popular hits — Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, the Lion King, and Mulan — and Disney’s beloved classics, the Princess and the Frog is really nothing spectacular, especially in terms of story and character. The cultural aspects are fun though, and animation is surely on par. I actually really like that they still included digitally painted backgrounds in their highly anticipated 2D revival. Disney’s demonstrated that traditional animation can still be used, but further suggests that they’re still experimenting with different ways to animate and to cartoon. Their upcoming Rapunzel movie for 2010 is a testament to this as they’re trying to make a CG movie not look like a CG movie. I look forward to it, but I do hope that Rapunzel’s struggles will be a little more interesting storywise than Tiana’s.

There are only a few naysayers, and most either confused or cautiously speculative, but I honestly don’t think many things on the fandom end will be affected; there will just be more money in different people’s pockets. What’s really going to change with this acquisition? Disney is notorious for aggressive merchandising and pushing their licensed characters, but will a flood of new action figures and new Marvel-themed rides at Disneyland really affect Marvel’s artistic integrity or quality of work? As long as Disney keeps its hand out of what the folks at Marvel actually do, then I don’t see a problem. People were upset when Disney bought out Pixar too, but Pixar has, for the most part, retained its autonomy and continues to produce outstanding films. So why shouldn’t I expect Marvel to continue making comics like it always has?

Some people are concerned with the long list of Marvel properties being developed as films at the moment, but it isn’t like Disney is forcibly severing Marvel’s existing contracts with the dozens of studios already involved. If Marvel’s success in movies is part of why it was attractive to Disney, then shouldn’t Disney just let them continue doing their thing? Others are concerned that Disney might take away from the maturity and violence of certain Marvel titles, but if Disney was also attracted to Marvel’s popularity with boys and men of a wide demographic, why would they tamper with that by numbing anything down? Of course, logic hasn’t stopped companies from shooting themselves in the foot before, but Disney should know that they can’t afford to make too many mistakes here.

I guess I might be more concerned if I actually read more Marvel titles, but my Western comic consumption is pretty limited as is, and even then, it’s mostly DC for Batman. Still, I see this mostly as just another acquisition that will be accepted soon enough, just like Disney and Pixar and when Adobe bought Macromedia.

As for Kingdom Hearts, I don’t really think that Spider-Man will be making his debut there any time soon, but Square-Enix is just as notorious for exploiting its properties as Disney, so who would really be surprised? Sora, Spidey, and Mickey VS Xemnas, the Lizard, and Sephiroth, why the hell not?? At this point, Kingdom Hearts is every bit as much of a cash cow as Final Fantasy, so I’m not too invested in the franchise keeping any kind of integrity anymore. It’s too late for that already, so whatever! Bring it. …I’ll still buy it. Integration might be a little awkward considering most Marvel characters reside in the “real world,” but hey, it would be kind of awesome if Sora and his buddies could visit Manhattan and do the tourist thing. Sora in Times Square! Sora in Central Park! Sora at the Statue of Liberty! Sora riding in a taxi! I mean, they’ve already visited Port Royal and that was a real place too.

Just think, you could have Wolverine as a summon and he’d slash through Heartless for you… Okay, so I can’t actually picture Logan taking orders from Sora at all, but heeey. Maybe if Sora buys him a cigar and a beer.