Animation excellence

Rating: 10/10 (9 January 2011)

This review won't really be useful to many people as I come at this film as an animation student. There have been precious few 2D or 3D animated productions that cam capture your heart and mind. We have the giants like Spirited away and Grave of the Fireflies in the 2D world and really anything from Pixar except Cars to love. Precious few others. Ice Age nailed it but most Dreamworks productions fail to capture the sheer brilliance that can be a character in motion. Despicable Me is another that just brought the characters to life and here with Tangled, we have that same excellence in character animation. Every character from the adorable chameleon to the angry horse are characters you'll love, not because of the story but simply because of the level of animation at play here.
There's an extra level of realism in this movie that you don't normally see too. There are moments during the movie where a characters face isn't seen and you lose sight of the fact it's just stylized 3D animation. The water scenes are particularly stand out brilliant cinematic moments with incredible realism. These scenes must have been globally illuminated to death. I dare not guess how long these frames must have taken to render.
But just like any special effects heavy movie, without a great story and equally great performance, you'll soon tire of it. Tangled doesn't disappoint there. The story is great fun, inventive and very much a wild spin on a very old fairytale. The performances from the real voice actors are devilishly good. It's surprising there weren't more BIG names doing the voices but satisfying to know that this really doesn't matter. The actors aren't phoning in these lines, they are nuanced, operatic and multi layered really helping give the animated characters much more depth.
For me it's the tiny moments that make the movie, not just the great slapstick moments but the way the characters emote. Rapunzel isn't sure of a new character entering the scene? Sure she has that look of trepidation and fear but the emoting is so dynamic and rich that you can almost see the characters thinking their emotions through from moment to moment. It's quite intense and I found myself a number of times being drawn towards the screen, feeling what Rapunzel was feeling. Almost mirroring the emotions as you might do with while talking to a great friend or partner.
So as I said at the beginning, this review probably not going to be so good for the average viewer wanting to find out whether to take the kids to see this but if you appreciate animation as an art form or even appreciate the technical skill involved in animation as pure entertainment. You must see this, you must go and see it again and then you must buy it, download it or otherwise get your hands on this and have it in your collection for happily, ever, after.