My Rambings About Tangled

While I'm still working on writing up my review for here and my blog, I'll be the first to say that the film was okay. I loved Maximus and Mother Grothel especially her songs but there were portions of the film that were forgettable. Not even the little chameleon made me crack a smile but then again, we had the well-animated horse so there was no way he could compete. I wish that there was more to Mother Grothel other than needing the flower to keep her youth. There wasn't any mention about if she was a witch or not. She was more human but given a curse it seemed. Also, since when babies come out of the womb with the hair length of a girl who's about four years old? It's one of the things I don't understand about films even though there was probably a passage of time from the time Rapunzel was born to the time she was cooing in her crib.

The Vikings were interesting although I already forgot their names. I know about their wishes but the whole song-and-dance number, while interesting, was also as forgettable as some of the songs from the film. Then again, if I take a listen to the soundtrack over and over again, the songs will be crammed in my head. Then again, after seeing The Princess and the Frog last year, I didn't have to wait until I received the soundtrack to have any of the songs to get stuck in my head.

While this film is the last of the fairy tales for now, I think that it pales in comparison to last year's Princess Classic however it was colorful and attractive calling back, once again, Maximus to the main lead even with her long hair in a braid. I'll admit that I grew to like Rapunzel and she's an interesting woman. Using her hair to swing around a tree to rescuing Flynn from being captured by his former cohorts and the Royal Army is, to me, the first superpower given to any young woman of Disney's history in the times of knights, handsome thieves, and no damsel in distress except near the end.

I think what held this film from being interesting to me was the plot. So what that Rapunzel wanted to see the many paper lanterns in the sky. I said to myself, 'The other princesses had better goals especially Princess Tiana who had to work, work, work in order to get what she wanted.' I know that it was another way of telling us that Rapunzel wanted to get out and see what she has been missing throughout her 18 years of being held in the tallest tower in the hidden sector of the forest but I wished that her goal in life was something better and stronger even when the film was in writing.

This isn't a film I'll pick up on DVD/Blu-Ray next year but I would show people Tangled to take a look at examples to assist them with transitioning the dynamics of 2D animation to be used effectively in a CGI film. This gains two out of my personal rating of four stars. With the animated projects we're getting next year from Disney, maybe they, or even one, might come off as being better than what I saw yesterday afternoon. Also, the marketing for the film didn't work since there were more little girls with their families than guys. Better luck next time with trying to reach your true demographic Disney. Then again, with their fairy tales, I don't need to be shown action in the trailers. I don't need to have commercials made exclusively for males my age and younger to pull them into this film. I'm not going to be negative on this film but I can see Disney complaining about not making a lot of money with this film. It could be The Princess and the Frog all over again but, in my opinion, it'll still collect enough money to be used for other future projects so I wouldn't complain.

For the trailers preceding the movie, none of them interested me. I already know that I'll check out Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader but everything else I'm skipping from Justin Bieber in Never Say Never 3D to Yogi Bear 3D although I might check out Cars II. Once you see the trailers for a lot of films online, you get tired of them once you have to deal with them before any film you watch in theaters.

Dreamworks’ MegaMind in IMAX 3D

How long has it been since Shrek 4? Like Tyler Perry and Disney, Dreamworks knows how it makes its money by releasing two-three films in one year. This is its most advertised film but it can also be lucked out from receiving an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature since, let’s be honest, we know that Disney/Pixar is taking home with the gold after claiming the title of Best Animated Feature OF ALL TIME. That film’s definitely going to be tough to match. MegaMind, featuring Will Ferrell as the titular blue-headed villain and Brad Pitt as Metro City’s Metro Man, which opens this Friday is a lot of fun than I originally thought it would be. Like Despicable Me, the film amps up its wow factor in bits and pieces from seeing Hal Stewart (Jonah Hill), camera man for news reporter and frequent damsel-in-distress Roxanna Ritchi (Tina Fey) turn evil to the final battle that ends with what is the norm of all CG films: a dance number. If you have seen the commercials, you’ve seen most of the film but in case you haven’t: MegaMind and Metro Man both came from neighbor planets being sucked into a black hole sent to Earth who live out two different lives: MegaMind gets sent to a state penitentiary after being bumped by Metro Man’s ship as babies with Metro Man living in a rich family.

Fast forward a few years and we find that Mega Mind is having trouble fitting in at school with him making the decision of being the villain. Metro Man, fast forward about a good 20 years or so, becomes the pointy-chinned, Superman hair carrying stud who later dies from one of Mega Mind’s schemes with the assistance of his partner Minion (David Cross). Cut to Mega Mind taking over the city and later regretting his plan of killing him. Without good to battle evil, what does evil do? Rather than creating a mind-controlled slave army, Mega Mind decides to create a pill with Metro Man’s DNA that accidentally ends up in Hal Stewart’s nose turning the loser whose attempt to win Ms. Ritchi with a bouncy house and dip fails when compared to Mega Mind’s switcheroo to being a the librarian of the Metro Man Museum, falling in love with Ms. Ritchi while training Hal to handle his powers and becoming the city’s newest hero in the process. Like Despicable Me, the film, at once thought to never hold my interest, grabbed me with one character in particular, Hal, mirroring the look of his voice actor along with making me think of being the illegitimate son of Disney/Pixar’s The Incredibles’ Syndrome. 

            With the advance screening I attended, the theater still had a few seats open to the public. For a film that had made it to the Guinness Book of Records for the Largest Gathering of Superheroes, that’s a bit of a disappointment. With my screening being on IMAX 3D, I can see why there weren’t a lot of people there. Some may have been turned off by the 3D aspect which has been one of the factors that have led to 3D films making less than most studios predict that they should. The film looks great in 3D although when tilting your head left or right, you lose the effect. The film delivered tons of laughs and awws from the audience but I grew tired of them after the first 10 minutes and the final 10 minutes even with a scene where the audience think a character’s going to die but lives. For a film that receives three out of four stars, it can be forgettable. As a guy mentioned while leaving the theater, he was mixed saying that it could had done more to appeal to both audiences. The problem is that he never fully explained what went wrong in the film. On Friday, more people will give their view on this film and it will be clear whether or not this is worth your money. To me, it was worth the price of admission if you have a free pass.