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- First reviewNovember 27, 2010
- Last reviewNovember 27, 2010
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WookieeNookie's Reviews
Overall rating
5
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5
Tangled Up in Laughs
PostedNovember 27, 2010
WookieeNookie
from San Francisco, CA
As a guy, I by default scorn Disney movies due to their inappropriate message of true love's first resolving life's problems, mainly those associated with a rite of passage into adulthood, which when you think of it is quite a sexual message. But aside from the obviously heavy sexual undertones, the main issue is the flawed idea that becomes ingrained in children's minds, especially those of impressionable young girls. While I am aware that people grow up and hopefully mature of these fantasy notions, a quick scan of Craigslist proves otherwise. Girls even to the age of 50 still carry on these imbecilic notions of romance and shining armored knights in their valiantly strong engine four wheeled vehicles of male virility and expense accounts. Or something to that effect.
So how is this movie different? Doesn't it have a theme of love? Yes. Doesn't it have that expected single kiss near the end? Yes. Doesn't it have the naive and unrealistically socially affirmed female beauty? You betcha. But it had all those in context along side with elements most Disney movies don't capitalize on in lieu of emphasizing the characiture of the stereotypical hero and princess amidst angsty pseudo-parental forces of evil. Sure, it had that parental vileness, too, but she worked well to communicate a somewhat novel idea not explored before by dull Disney: the Campbellian hero cycle.
In this story, what one has to recognize is that the male lead, Flynn Rider (or Eugene Herbwhateverhislastnameis as we learned later) is not the hero. No, my dear viewers, he is not. It's actually Rapunzel who is the hero of this story. Flynn was for all intents an purposes the aide or helper in helping Rapunzel escape her platonic cave in all its amazing allegory. Wait, what? Wasn't I just bashing females a bit earlier? Not really. Just sit back and relax; you might actually learn something intellectual from my scholarly genius. Flynn provided a catalyst for Rapzy to cross that threshold into the unknown, which was actually at the Snugly Duck tavern/pub/thingy. See, it was there she would have encountered the strangeness that was the collective brutishness of the outside world and had things not gone well would have been forced back to her enclosure. Once again, in his own charming inability to control events, Flynn stumbles upon another opportunity for Rapzy to overcome this challenge. The song about dreams was a very apt one, because the hero cycle requires the hero to venture from one's situation of comfort into a realm that is effectively dream-like.
It is at this point that Flynn becomes the full fledged helper as the majority of the movie becomes an enjoyable chase. This is where Flynn attains some originality as the helper as he is also a significant focus of the movie and is tangled up with the fate of Rapunzel, which we expect, but have to recognize that he has a significant dynamic change although it can be debated when that change actually clicked in. Now I could continue on explaining how this was a great hero story with a believable strong female character who challenges the chains of her seemingly maternal influence, attaining her independence and self-confidence, but I'm sure you get the animation. What helped this movie stand apart beyond this crucial backbone of a female lead story is that the male role was sarcastic, self-involved, untrustworthy or at least initially and didn't represent the typical unbelievable Disney male knight. We expect him to change, which is fine as not every original story must be unpredictable in every way, but as I mentioned earlier the realization of change is open to debate and strengthens the value of this tale because it actually offers something intellectual to discuss beyond the pedantic hero says girl, gets married, throw away your trash on your way out kind of Disney movie.
I could continue dissecting the virtues of the characters use in this movie, but let's move on to some of the other aspects of this film that made me smile. First and foremost is that dream song at the tavern which put a smile on my face for giving a respectful nod to the Camelot song from Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Did you also catch that bridge that had effectively the same tune for a few moments when the guy was doing his table dance?). I love me some Monty Python. But this segueways into the fact that every song actually served a purpose of informing us about the characters and their deeper motivations versus just lolly gagging about ideas that have little to do with their journey around the grassy knolls of the kingdom. There were fewer of them and they were far less corny.
Plus let's give props to the complexity written into the evil mother character and her manipulative machinations that weren't quite so linear. But at the end of the day, what really sells this movie is that I was actually able to laugh during a Disney animated feature. It was legitimately funny. The only Disney-related animations I laugh through are the ones done by Pixar which I don't attribute to Disney at all because Pixar has its own writing team and is just contracted with Disney as its parental distribution company. And for me, a movie that is genuinely funny and intelligently so deserves its dues.
Therefore, this movie gets its full five stars even though nearly all other Disney movies are at best a one star dud.
QED.
Yes, I recommend this movie.
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