Tangled (2010)

4/5

Disney's Tangled is a return to the fairytale genre they seemed to have singlehandedly created way back in 1937 with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The plot follows Rapunzel (Moore) as a young princess who was stolen by the aging Mother Gothel (Murphy) and placed in a hidden tower for the magical healing power of her hair. She dreams of what the outside world is like and one day her wish comes true when she gets rescued by a thief named Flynn Rider (Levi). Flynn is being chased by royal guards, and one particular royal horse named Maximus, who is quite possibly the most hilarious and memorable character in the entire movie, even though he never speaks a word. Disney knows good entertainment, and this movie continues in its tradition by producing this fantastic story with spectacular visuals.

I really loved the animation: it had a distinct style (unlike Beauty and the Beast) that I absolutely adored. It was painterly and beautiful and smooth and luminous and just about perfect. Except for one thing. The eyes really bugged me, because they were huge and outlined with like three million tiny eyelashes. So bizarre. I had smaller qualms with the movie as well. The narration was 100% unnecessary (the intro and ending would have been far more poignant had they tried it silently like in Up). The acting, the music, and the dialogue failed to impress me, although they never detracted from the rest of its greatness. What frustrated me the most about this movie was that it was so close to being something special. It was so close to being more than just another enjoyable flick, but unfortunately that's all I found it to be.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0398286/

Bolt (2008)

3/5

Bolt is the story of a young dog brought up in a Truman Show-esque world where he's a superhero with the ability to melt metal objects with his laser eyes and explode city blocks with his superbark. A studio exec comes to the shooting stage and informs the producers that the show is too happy, which is causing them to lose the 18-34 demographic. To capture that age group, the director ends a shoot with an exciting cliffhanger, only to have Bolt escape his trailer in an attempt to save his owner Penny. And that's when he accidentally gets shipped to New York, meets an array of animal friends, and road trips back to Hollywood to save the day. In the happy, sappy way they previously suggested 18-34 year olds do not appreciate.

Bolt is probably Disney's first non-Pixar CGI film (the movie isn't good enough for me to spend time fact-checking my own arbitrary allegations) and it's certainly not as good as their Pixar ones. There's a reason for this discrepancy. Pixar movies are surprising, fresh, new, and invigorating; Bolt is formulaic and predictable. Bolt plays right into expectations. Granted, it does so in a cute (but not adorable) way, but that's simply not enough these days. I can see this movie originating as a pitch to financiers instead of a novel idea built from the ground up and smoothed out over a long time by a love for filmmaking instead of test audience reaction surveys. Still, it's an enjoyable enough film if you feel like spending 90 minutes watching a cute dog, but don't expect anything even approaching Pixar quality.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0397892/