Goldilocks And Her Free Hairs

Rating: 7/10 (9 April 2020)

An apt film, as it turned out, to watch in lockdown, this free adaptation of the old fairy tale for me is the way Disney should be going, finding fresh tales to tell from the great collections rather than remaking their classic animations of the past as real-life features.
A winning combination of humour, music and animation, I rate this one of the best Pixar movies I've seen. Personally I do find the depiction of the characters slightly problematic, especially females with their massive eyes and eyelashes just making them, particularly the heroines, too cutesy. Perhaps the same could be said of the heavies whose ugly features are a bit too exaggerated too but I did like the way roguish Flynn / Eugene was shown. As for the backgrounds and individual details, these are pretty wonderful, like the depictions of grass, flowing water and of course Rapunzel's hair. Better yet is the imaginative staging of shots, some taking viewpoints we would now recognise as drone shots while others just demonstrate motion and speed in pleasing and often exhilarating ways, the best of them probably being the flying lanterns, which look like magical dolly mixtures in motion, which, trust me, is a very good thing. I enjoyed the vocal acting, the better for not being done by some megastar who doesn't need the work.
The story follows the classic template for this type of film, a young heroine (or hero), striking out for personal freedom, often to right a great wrong, usually against the advice of those around them. Usually too there is at least one and here in fact two cute animal companions, some romantic interest, a lot of feel-good songs, usually by Alan Menken and of course an evil baddie to pursue and thwart the central character until all is resolved for the inevitable happy ending.
Of course I appreciate that a film like this isn't aimed at the likes of me but I still enjoyed many of the gags, the songs, even if it perhaps lacks a really big number that sticks in the memory and the rollicking story. Sure some of the individual characterisations aren't too different from what we've seen before but this is definitely higher-grade Disney and a good fun movie to watch at a time like this.