Review: With Wonderful, Complicated "Tangled," Disney is Back to Animation Brilliance

Speaking of not living happily ever after.

Walt Disney Studios didn't just invent the art form of the full-length animated movie; they also managed to set off a second animation "renaissance" starting in 1989 with The Little Mermaid and the string of other critical and box office hits that followed, including Beauty & the Beast and The Lion King.

Before long, however, the creative energy shifted away from hand-drawn to computer-generated animation, as well as to the competitors Disney had inspired, Pixar (which Disney now owns) and Dreamworks Animation.

Disney has tried to regain their prominence in the field of animated movies before, most notably with last year's The Princess and the Frog, a respectable, if underwhelming entry.

Well, guess what? Disney is finally definitely back. Not only is their latest release as good as anything Disney released in its first hey-day or its second 1990s animation renaissance, it might even be ... better.

Yes, I said it. Earlier this year, I was so impressed by Toy Story 3 that I literally couldn't imagine a movie more deserving of a Best Animated Feature Oscar (or, frankly, an outright Best Picture nod).

Tangled is a very, very different film, but it's just as good: touching, hilarious, tightly-written, with a terrific score by long-time Disney composer Alan Menken (and Glenn Slater on lyrics).

Best of all, it feels both classic and contemporary. The film was done using CGI, but has a hand-drawn "look" that is meant to resemble oil painting on canvas; I've never seen anything like it. Meanwhile, the songs are classic "Menken" all the way — hummable, Broadway-ready melodies with oh-so-clever lyrics — but they've been updated with edgy arrangements and vocals by pop singer Mandy Moore (surprisingly good as Rapunzel).

The trailers made Tangled out to be something of a Dreamworks-like quip-fest with lots of distracting pop culture references, but the movie wisely mostly avoids this route, offering instead a contemporary sensibility with a very complicated — um, tangled — moral complexity and sophistication.

Speaking of which, the movie has one of the freshest, funniest, campiest villains of all time: Mother Gothel, brilliantly and hilariously voice-acted by Broadway performer Donna Murphy. Talk about giving your villain a point-of-view!

The movie tells the classic tale of Rapunzel, but with more than a little rewriting: this girl is locked in a tower because she just happens to accidentally possess the magic that can keep her kidnapper, who she believes to be her mother, young forever. But Rapunzel yearns to see the outside world, especially the annual festival of floating lanterns she can see from her window — a festival that just happens to be the work of her real mother and father, the king and queen, who are still pining over the kidnapping of their daughter. But Rapunzel's "mother," insisting she has only Rapunzel's interests at heart, refuses to let Rapunzel leave.

Enter Flynn Rider, a smooth-talking rogue who has recently stolen some of the kingdom's crown jewels and has both the authorities (in the form of, well, a horse named Maximus) and his robbery companions (who he has double-crossed) on his heels. (He's also surprisingly hunky. Can a cartoon be a sex symbol?)

Rapunzel makes Flynn a deal: she'll return his stolen jewels to him if he'll agree to act as her guide on her journey out of the tower to see the Festival of Lanterns. And since Rapunzel can't cut her hair or it will lose its magic, all those fabulous locks must come along for the journey — in ways that are both aggravating and surprisingly helpful.

There isn't a false note in the entire movie, but there are several things that I found particularly impressive. 

First and foremost, the movie is really, really funny. When Rapunzel leaves the tower for the first time, it brings on a bout of existential angst that had me absolutely dying with laughter.

Second, the movie is smart. For one thing, it includes a scene of existential angst! Then there's the musical sequence that takes place in a tavern called the Snuggly Duckling that plays with audience expectations not just once, but twice. And while it isn't outright "gay," let's just say that it has a very, very gay sensibility.

More importantly, like Toy Story 3, the movie is psychologically complicated, sophisticated, and daring. Basically, this is the story of a girl rebelling against the person she believes to be her mother. Early in the movie, the "mother" sings a (brilliant) song called "Mother Knows Best." But does she? The fact is, this is a Disney movie — a Disney movie! — that is telling kids to defy authority if it seems that that authority does not have your best interests at heart.

Suffice to say that this is not a tale that Walt Disney, a right-winger to his core, ever would have told back in the 1940s.

And Mother Gothel is the best kind of villain a movie can have because she's not just evil and nasty, she's also really, really smart. When Rapunzel becomes defiant, Mother Gothel doesn't just get her ruffians to capture Rapunzel and put her back in prison: no, she embarks on a complicated plan to destroy Rapunzel's spirit which, let's face it, isn't just more effective than merely imprisoning her again, it's also much more evil.

Great music, hilarious jokes, a touching story, and a complicated theme. 

Um, yeah. Disney is back. I'm worried you won't take me seriously if I say this twice in one year, but like Toy Story 3, this one's a classic.