Brilliantly realised and very entertaining

Rating: 9/10 (31 January 2011)

As the father of young girls, I get to see more than my fair share of animated movies and am used to them falling into one of two categories - either quite entertaining and well put together or excruciatingly bad. I can now a third category - brilliant.
This is a wonderful piece of film-making, let alone animation. The story has superb pace, a strong narrative and genuinely engaging characters. It's funny, touching and gripping - and it looks wonderful too.
Of course it has the usual stock Disney characters (feisty, independent princess, cheeky animal sidekick, comedy villains, evil mother figure etc) - but, here's the twist: they actually pull it off this time - the funny characters are funny, the leading man is charming, the princess is hugely likable.
I know Toy Story 3 will win the Oscar - but I'm amazed this hasn't been nominated. TS3 fell into my first category for me (entertaining and well made) but was essentially a rehash of the themes from TS2 and was neither original nor any better than its predecessors. Tangled is simply a better film on almost every level.
Tangled is the first animated film I've seen since Spirited Away where I came out the cinema thinking I'd seen a great film, not just an entertaining one.