Twisted Tale

Tangled

Directed by Nathan Greno and Byron Howard

Runtime: 100 min.

The Disney machine kicks into gear once again with Tangled, a 3-D update of the Brothers Grimm tale “Rapunzel,” but developed for a generation that no longer reads (and, as Disney’s title-change implies, probably doesn’t recognize the name “Rapunzel” in their Hannah Montana world).

The medieval girl Rapunzel (voiced by Mandy Moore) is still trapped in a tower where access is only available to her witchy guardian Mother Gothel (Donna Murphy) and her rascal suitor Flynn Ryder (Zachery Levi) by climbing her long locks of blonde hair. In contemporary cartoon fashion—and

CGI excess—Rapunzel’s hair length is exaggerated to Shrek-like proportions. It sometimes wraps around Flynn like a lariat or noose. It’s insanely “wiggy” with a life of its own, but there’s not one credibly girlish moment where Rapunzel’s hair becomes a nuisance for its owner. And the couple’s adventures to escape get twisted into more of the same comical nonsense and musical numbers that extract both imagination and significance from fairy tales.

Tangled, like Pixar product, doesn’t introduce audiences to wonderment; it’s simply part of the process where moviegoers—children especially—are indoctrinated into the habit of following advertising and consumerism. The nakedness of this film’s formula (with funny bandits, winking animals and Broadway-bound musical numbers) shamelessly makes jokes and routines the pay-off—not meaning, psychological suggestion or poetry. (Adults might remember the symbolic schooldays rhyme: “Let down your hair so that I might climb the golden stair.” Today’s kids merely get 3-D.)

By mixing up and confusing the purpose of cinematic amusement and fairy tales, Tangled is aptly named for the mass misperception of popular entertainment as a mechanism of gimmicks rather than an expression of feelings. Tangled provides the latest evidence why this current era of animated, 3-D overproduction is not a golden age (no matter how many Pixar stooges claim otherwise). Adults will steer clear; responsible parents will read to their kids instead. Tangled’s deficiency is a form of cinematic mange.