Pretty good...

Rating: 7/10 (21 January 2011)

Disney's homesick return to its nostalgic fairytale style, a move that started in 2007 with the surprisingly delightful Enchanted, has now led to a belated adaptation of the classic fairytale Rapunzel, one they'd surprisingly neglected in their heyday. While it is pleasing to see them pushing forward, and not simply looking back to their previous works and parodying them, it is also a disappointment to realise that the age of those beautiful, treasured animated gems are gone. After years of DreamWorks Animation Studios slowly beating those films to death with relentless childish mockery, it becomes difficult when watching this musical fantasy story to know when and when not it is meant to attract cynical undertones. Also, the ridiculous tendencies towards half-hearted sitcom humour and ersatz pathos that children's movies have acquired over the past few decades have unfortunately not been fought against here, spoiling most of the attempts to recreate the old magic. However, whilst it can never achieve that winsome sense of purity and innocence we love about the classics and thus join them, it still ranks as one of the better and more universally enjoyable kids films of the last ten years. The animation is attractive and colourful, the pacing is mostly slick and tight, the numerous gags don't quite get a laugh but don't fall flat either, the songs here are quite a nice addition – in particular Mother Knows Best and its reprises – and its characters are genuinely interesting. To top things off, its villain, the nasty witch named Gothel (voiced by Donna Murphy) is the first antagonist with an actually evil countenance seen in a while. Also starring the voices of Mandy Moore and Zachary Levi, it should be considered at best as a superior alternative this summer to Gulliver's Travels in the children's movies section, but by no means is it a must- see comedic musical fairytale animation extravaganza.