Movie Review: Tangled

Tangled is based on Rapunzel by the Brothers Grimm, like with a lot of Disney stories it has been given a more modern make over, the Princess this time being more Mr Miagi than Damsel in distress, The Hair has almost been given a life of it’s own with Rapunzel using it like Indian Jones handles a whip to be both a source of transportation and a weapon – although for obvious reasons of plausibility the hair does seem to be of differing lengths throughout the film. The story is very much Disney and from the very start you work out what is going to happen but then it is a Disney so it doesn’t take away from the charm. As with most child based releases these days there is obviously a “cute” character, this time a Chameleon called Pascal – coming to a lunchbox near you soon. However this Pascal is actually quite funny so not just another JarJar Binks.

Disney have once again foregone the star packed voice lists of Dreamworks and Fox choosing instead lesser known stars (Although not to take anything away from them.) Mandy Moore – More known as a singer than an actor and Zachary Levi – The guy from Chuck. The singing therefore sounds much more natural to the stars and in keeping with the traditional Disney animations feature as set pieces throughout the film. Supporting talent is provided by Ron Pearlman and Brad Garratt (The brother from “Everybody loves Raymond”, although to me he will always be Trypticon from Transformers.)

The film is fun enough to keep children amused but funny enough to entertain adults, and when your sitting down for a half term movie is there anything else you require?

Sorcerer's Apprentice fails to provide magic

Whilst I was off work last week We attended the Cinema, as it was a special occasion we went to the Cineworld at Brighton Marina instead of the Crawley Branch – I understand if you are intimidated by my champagne lifestyle – Anyway we saw the Sorcerers Apprentice, This film stared Nicolas Cage and Jay Baruchel in the lead roles with Cage the Sorcerer Balthazar and Baruchel the titular apprentice. The film was basically what you would expect from a Disney film – is it just me or are all films playing very safe and by the numbers at the moment? It again brought home the question of what happened to the image of a cool leading man as Baruchel seems to always be playing a nerd who is lost in the world of “normal” people even whilst he is busy shooting a plasma ball, personally I find it quite an achievement that they can take a guy who is shooting plasma, saving his friend and getting the girl and not make him cool but somehow Disney manage to pull it off. But I guess we just live in the age of the nerd, after all the biggest name in Hollywood at the moment seems to be Robert Pattinson who nobody can say isn’t strange looking.

Anyway the film is saved, as most seem to be these days by Cage who as another experienced Hollywood star plays his part in his usual humoured yet gravely serious way, there is of coarse a homage to fantasia with dancing mops etc… but it is reasonably well done, I would suggest that the main villain of the film is slightly stupid as he tends to feel that having too much help might give him an unfair chance of winning so waits until one helper is dead before calling another (Surely more sensible to build an army.) but I guess if it was not for the stupidity of movie bad guys then good guys would never get to Cages age in the first place.

There were also bit parts for Monica Bellucci (the Matrix Trilogy) and Alice Krige (Borg Queen from Start Trek First Contact) who appear only briefly but in my opinion without cage this film would be showing at 6am on the Disney Chanel in about two months