Tangled

Rated PG

Catholic-ometer: 4 of 5

Enjoyability: 4.5 of 5

Looking back on my review of the Princess and the Frog, I feel I may have dropped the ball (no joke intended) in one respect.  I didn't give it sufficient credit for the fact that both main characters cared enough about each other to sacrifice themselves; in other words, true love.  I apologize for overlooking this.

I only mention this because the very same thing is present to an even greater degree in Tangled; probably one of the better animated Disney movies I've ever seen in my life.  Not top three, certainly, but top ten at least.

It's a story about Rapunzel and how she escapes from her tower to find out the secret of the lanterns that rise into the sky each year on her birthday.  In escaping, she enlists the assistance of a thieving, manipulative, philandering bandit named Flynn Ryder (he gets better,) and has to struggle to keep from being dragged back to the tower by the hag Gothel, who's been using her magic hair to stay young.

Tangled has everything.  There are scenes with fun, fast-paced action and adventure, scenes with pure comedy, heartwarming scenes, goofy scenes, romantic scenes, tragic scenes, etc, and sometimes, a little overlap.  There are running gags that travel through the whole movie, characters who always bring a little levity to the scenes they're in, and Rapunzel's mile-long hair is easily as eye-catching and fun to watch in action as the balloon house from "Up."

The horse Maximus is one of the coolest and funniest characters I've ever seen.  Utterly wordless, unquestionably upright and unshakably determined to see justice done, and yet, he pulls it off with a sort of goofy seriousness rivaling the vorpal bunny from Monty Python.  No matter what scenes Maximus is in, it always benefits from having him in it.  In fact, I'd say he's probably the best enforcer that the royal guards have at their disposal.

Gothel is a surprisingly well-done villain.  She might be a witch, but there's no indication of it.  She never uses any magic.  She's just crafty and manipulative, and really, when you think about it, that's all that most real villains are too.  On top of that, having very little power makes it much more of a challenge to write for a villain, and yet, in a sense, much more rewarding.  Coming up with schemes for an intelligent villain requires intelligent writers, and I absolutely appreciate the effort that was put into this.

Rapunzel's real parents never say a word, and neither does her best friend; the chameleon Pascal, but in a way, the fact that they can be so expressive and convey such a breadth and depth of emotions regardless, is itself quite an accomplishment.  I was amazed by just how much was accomplished with these characters, without ever saying a word.

Flynn and Rapunzel both have basically the same problem, as characters, unfortunately, and that is that while their relationship is utterly serious in later scenes, they both start out more or less goofy and hyper.  Rapunzel uses a lot of modern, casual, teenagery terminology, and Flynn is even worse in this respect, since he starts out with so many character flaws.  Still, as I said, all of this gets better later on, so it's very well-done.  Flynn is played a little like Bill Murray's character from Groundhog Day.  You don't really like him at first, but as time goes on, he becomes a better person.

Rapunzel is a little different in that respect.  She's likable from the very start; quirky and weird in a happy sense.  Energetic, intelligent and imaginative.  However, even she starts out the movie with nothing to really sacrifice, and no one to sacrifice for, and it really helps as the movie progresses, and this gradually changes, until she and Flynn both become truly heroic characters.

Flynn is clearly shown stealing, betraying, philandering and so forth, so there's obviously a reason for this to be rated PG, but like I said, these aspects of his character don't last.  I was actually amazed by the quality of the music in this movie.  It's truly awesome; even the instrumental tracks.  In fact, it reminded me a lot of Beauty and the Beast; probably because they got the same guy to do it.

The humor in the movie is wacky and weird at times, and very strongly character-driven at other times.  There was no toilet humor, no off-color jokes, etc...  I think that pleased me more than anything.  They had to get away from the Dreamworks/Fox trends of non-funny humor if they wanted to make a real masterpiece, and they did this magnificently.  In fact, I have only two gripes against this film, really.  One small, the other big.

The small one is this; I didn't feel that the narration over the beginning and end of the film was helpful.  It's like the king and queen.  The visuals alone would have told me what I needed to know.  Hearing Flynn talking in modern casual slang over them doesn't improve their ability to tell me the story of what happened.  They could still have had narration, though.  Maybe if it was just a more dignified-sounding kind of narrator, like they got for Beauty and the Beast.

The big gripe is this; something happens to Rapunzel near the end of the film, which drastically alters her appearance, and this truly troubled me.  Granted, this does show Flynn's development as a character more strongly, because it proves his willingness to give his life for her, but I much preferred Rapunzel's quirky looks at the beginning, to her more modern looks at the end.  Still, even this is just a surface-level complaint.  I tend to stop the movie before the ending these days, but if it doesn't bother you as much as it bothered me, have a field day.

To sum it up, Tangled is far superior to the Princess and the Frog, and as I said, one of the better Disney films in general.  Watch it for yourself, and then decide what you like and don't like.  Like I said, a few things bothered me, but I still think it was a great flick, and I hope you'll like it as well.

The Princess and the Frog

Rated G

Catholic-ometer: 2.5 of 5

Enjoyability: 2.5 of 5

Disney movies have a long and well-understood history.  They began with serious, epic stories of fairy tales to enchant young children, degenerated to less-than-epic fare after a while, then came roaring back with awesome animation, mixed up with a little believable character-comedy in the Little Mermaid, and Beauty and the Beast.  After that, the intended secular message of certain films ruined them, and in others, the comedy kind of took center stage, and the quality of Disney films in general declined.  I was more than a bit skeptical of those who said I should give this film a chance, but I wasn't going to reject the possibility of another Disney revival, if they could pull it off.

I've heard people say this film was great, but complicated in its plotline.  I've heard people say it took its characters seriously once again, but had plenty of side-comedy as well.  I've heard people say the only thing they really disliked about it was all the magic thrown around by the bad guy.  Well, I -loved- Sleeping Beauty, and the bad guy in that movie threw a lot of magic around as well, so I was at least interested in what this film had to offer.

Now for the bad news.  For all that this movie sometimes attempts to be yet another masterpiece, and does make an effort to treat the central relationship seriously, it's also very much a product of its times.  By this time, 20th Century Fox and Dreamworks had saturated the movie market with unfunny, immature, toilet-minded films, laughably marketed as "kids movies."  You know the kind of rambling, aimless, hyperactive trash I'm talking about.

The Princess and the Frog had a lot of potential, and much of it was used.  Its main characters are actually interesting and believable people for the most part, and each changes for the better over the course of the film.  It could actually be a charming relationship, if you can ignore the fact that they're both frogs.  In addition, the main villain, while not as physically-threatening as someone like Maleficent, is still a serious and tangible threat to the main characters, and has big plans to do horrible things to them.  He's not a goof; he's a serious, believable villain, and to be honest, of everything in this movie, all the evil voodoo and demons he throws around are probably the things I take the least issue with.  Disney has rarely sugar-coated the reality of evil in their movies, and it's one thing I like most about the majority of their productions.

I also disagree with those who say the plot was too complex.  It did have a lot of weird twists, and you didn't know exactly what the plot was going to be from the start of the film, but that's good.  Kids will benefit if you ask them to think a little bit about what's being fed into their brains, and adults certainly won't be confused by it.  It made perfect sense to me.

However, I do have two problems with it, and they're big ones.  The side-characters, and the treatment of man-woman relations.

First, the second one.  The prince begins his journey as an impenitent philanderer, and never really seriously repents of this later on.  He learns to care about someone, and to work harder, but not to treat women in general with greater respect because they're people too.  That's a moral message that's missing from this movie, and it would really have benefitted from it.

However, I'm more concerned with the "marriage," because last time I checked, blind voodoo ladies weren't priests.  They don't have the authority to wed two people in holy matrimony, and therefore, the ending really is something of a head-scratcher when you think about it.  The treatment of mere human institutions as though they can substitute for legitimate marraige is a pervasive sin in our current society, but endorsing that sin is by no means cool, especially when it's subtle and unobtrusive like this.

With regard to the side-characters, as I said, this film is very much a product of its times, and although many of them get serious moments, for the most part, they exist to be goofy and ridiculous, and to have no real relationships or motives beyond a single desire each, which, this being Disney, they'll need to have granted by the time the film ends.  Louis, Ray, the baiyou hunters, and especially Mama Odie are all goofiness-personified, and this just makes adults feel uncomfortable, because the characters seem to be having a good time, but are impossible to sympathise with.  It doesn't help that some of them (Ray, for example,) get a bit of toilet-humor added to the mix, which no mature adult can appreciate.

Now, when I say "the side-characters," I don't mean -all- the side characters.  Charlotte is goofy too, but she actually demonstrates legitimate love and caring for the main character, and her father isn't the goofiness-engine that some of the others are.  He's a weak human being, but not in an over-the-top way.  In fact, I found him somewhat likable.  I don't remember any of the other characters really standing out in particular.

I guess I could say that what strength the film has comes from its relationship between the two main characters, but actually... there isn't much of anything there.  Oh, don't get me wrong, it's nice to see Disney taking a central relationship seriously again, and they do treat it with all the seriousness it deserves, but I never got the impression that the leads had much of anything in common; not even any real common interests.  They really don't have much reason to even like one another, and the scenes that they have together feel just a little forced as a result.

Lastly, I can't be the only one who felt that the near-complete excision of the human element hurt this film's central relationship a little.  All the really meaningful scenes happen while both are frogs, and really... that's a tough bar to get past.  Likewise, the swamp that most of their development occurs in feels more like a mood-vacuum to stick goofiness into, rather than any actual location with its own flavor or features of consequence.  Then, too, I don't really see why "last two-hundred years New Orleans" was judged to be a better location for this story than medieval Europe, where it traditionally took place.

I was expecting less from this movie, but hoping for more.  It hurt a little in certain points, but there's no real harm done, and despite the complaints that some others have had, I wouldn't worry about the evil magic and demons.  My main concern is with the treatment this film gives to romance, and the overall lack of strong character it contains.  For these reasons and others, I'll probably never bother watching it again.

Life is Worth Living

By Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

Catholic-ometer: 5 of 5

Enjoyability: 5 of 5

I wish I had more to say about this book, but it covers a completely different set of themes in each chapter, so there's just not much I can do to summarize it.  Still, here goes.

This is a book by Bishop Sheen, written by imperfectly transcribing a few dozen episodes of his classic show; Life is Worth Living.  I say "imperfectly," only because the transcriptions aren't strictly word-for-word.  It's really very well-done.

Now, that having been said, if you know anything about Bishop Sheen, you know what a clever wit and a powerful speaker he was, to say nothing of being one of the most honest and faithful Catholics in America.  Even his worst work is exceptionally-good, and this is some of his best; the strong, solid messages that kept millions and millions of Americans watching him week after week, even in a prime-time slot that competed with Frank Sinatra and Milton Berle.

The chapters of this book are well-divided into such topics as mothers, war, character-building, education, suffering, teenagers, prayer and tolerance (the last being one of my favorites, for debunking several myths about tolerance that we as a culture have been terminally suffering from since his death.)

I don't say this kind of thing often, but I really think that anyone who has any desire to see a truly balanced world view described (Catholic or otherwise) would benefit from reading this book.  It's Bishop Sheen at his finest and most faithful, and when you get down to it, you can't give a book a much bigger compliment than that.