Tangled may not quite be on par with the Disney classics of late 80s/90s but there's plenty of magic in Rapunzel's hair for most believers.

Rating: 7/10 (16 May 2011)

Once upon a time there lived a selfish woman named Gothel who found a flower which returned her youth. She kept it a secret and told no one its location. When princess Rapunzel was still in the womb her mother became very sick. In order to save the queen and Rapunzel a search was called to find the magical flower. The magical flower was found and Rapunzel was saved but Gothel had lost her fountain of youth. The flower had transfered all its magic to Rapunzel's hair which could heal wounds and reverse aging.
In order to regain her fountain of youth Gothel kidnaps Rapunzel and raises her as her own. Gothel keeps her locked away in a tower and tells Rapunzel never to leave. She also never cuts Rapunzel's hair, for when it is cut it loses its powers. On Rapunzel's 18th birthday Rapunzel requests to leave her tower and go see the lights that have been appearing in the sky annual on her birthday. When Gothel refuses Rapunzel blackmails a thief named Flynn to be her guide and protector on a journey to the lights. Flynn begrudgingly agrees and the two start off on adventure with Gothel, henchmen and the royal guards all trying to stop them.
The animation is Tangled is good and the characters are well rounded if a little stereotypical. Rapunzel is pretty much the same girl you've seen in most children's film nowadays. She's beautiful, insecure at times but also fairly courageous. Equipped with a frying pan to defend herself Rapunzel also uses her long hair to great effect, using it as rope swinging from cliff to cliff and tying up bad guys. Flynn is the charming thief who learns there's more to life than image and wealth and Gothel is a pretty good evil step mother with a few shortcomings.
The jokes in Tangled are great, with characters making fun of the many of the exaggerated elements of fairy tales and the adventure is quiet charming. The songs are good but not classic and the side characters are fun, consisting of a chameleon and a horse that acts more like a dog.
However Tangled falls short in the last third of the film. It's not that the end of the film is bad in anyway but it's just not amazing or terribly clever. It might just be that audiences have gotten so inundated with fairy tales that they know the endings to most movies. The evil step mother, without any special powers of her own, is not a quiet as scary as let's say Ursula from The Little Mermaid. The only thing that Gothel can do is scheme and wield a dagger. Her schemes are good but Gothel just doesn't have enough of a screen presence to make the film scary, which those old Disney films had. The ending ties up a little too cleanly, at least for me. Also the horse Maximus which in the beginning wants nothing more than to apprehend Flynn switches sides rather dramatically which was a bit unbelievable.
Tangled is a bunch of fun and it's the closest Disney has gotten to bringing back their golden age of animation.
Who this film is not for:
-People who never liked the old Disney movies: Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin etc.