BOTTOM LINE: Disney’s 50th animated feature film is somewhat feistier and fun than sentimental, making it a fresh, enjoyable romp, despite the dramatic weakness of the villain and Rapunzel’s plight.

THE GOOD: The traditional fairy tale of Rapunzel forms the basis of this new animated film from Disney. The usual story is there, but the overall execution is much more fun and modern, with a feistiness that makes the whole endeavour fresh and engaging to watch. Rapunzel (Mandy Moore) is more a tom-boy type heroine who, despite being afraid of disappointing her apparent mother Gothel (Donny Murphy), is not so afraid of the world and goes on an incredible adventure outside her tower when dashing Flynn Ryder (Zachary Levi) shows up in her life. Although the film is computer generated, the filmmakers in this instance modelled their work on traditional oil paintings which gives the film a unique look; a somewhat quasi-hybrid of CGI and old-style animation. The results are spectacular, and the film manages to successful combine these elements, offering the best facets of each in every image. Disney’s animated films are notable for their music, but the songs this time are not as in-your-face as in previous efforts, allowing the film to keep its more modern feel, an aspect which works very much in its favour. One of the reasons for this adjustment in tone may be that John Lasseter from Pixar was involved as a producer and may have imbued some of his sentiments in to the final product. “Tangled” is a lot of fun, is beautiful to look at, and quite thankfully does not dive in to overt sentimentality, even when the happy ending arrives, with Flynn finishing the film with a witty piece of narration.

THE BAD: The weakness in the film largely stems from the villain, and by extension, Rapunzel’s obstacles that she has to overcome. Although Gothel is quite obviously not nice, she is not made particularly evil throughout the film, despite a few moments in the climax. As a villain therefore, she can be quite weak in terms of presence. Given Rapunzel’s free-spirited nature and lack of fear of the outside world, it does not seem to take much for her to defy her mother’s orders to stay in the tower. This is compounded by the fact that Gothel goes off for days at a time and all Rapunzel has to do is use her hair to escape to freedom. The film makes up for a lot of this by the adventure and banter between Flynn, Rapunzel and a number of other characters, but the lack of a strong villain is a weak point in this film.