Professor Popinjay's Compendium of Perspicacity

A Non-review by Professor Popinjay

(2010)

Okay, I guess we’re doing this.

There was plenty I enjoyed in Tangled. The bar scene alone makes this worth the watch. It’s a showcase of some of the greatest voices in the business. Ron Perlman, Jeffery Tambor, Brad Garrett, Paul F. Tomkins, RICHARD KIEL!!! Are you kidding me!?! I love these guys! The only thing that would’ve made it even better would be Randy Savage! I don’t imagine he was doing well health-wise though. We would lose him in 2011. God bless his lovable juiced-up soul.

Sadly we would lose Richard Kiel too in 2014. Tangled was his last film.

I do wish Flynn Rider would have been a bit more respectable. I get the whole Thief with a Heart of Gold notion and I’m all about redemption and all. I was just tired of the trope where some dirt bag changes his ways to thwart some injustice and in the process becomes the obvious choice for the girl. Disney’s The Princess and the Frog came out just a year before and even Prince Naveen was kind of a cavorter. There are ways to make a character complex and flawed and interesting without making them out-and-out criminals or womanizers. Aladdin gets pardoned because he was starving.

Our villain, Mother Gothel, reminded me of evil Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Valentina Allegra de Fontaine from various Marvel films). Gothel was a little fun but so dang manipulative it was hard to consider her a villain you love to hate. This isn’t a complaint. Her character worked well for the story but she is less Dr. Facilier and more wicked stepmother.

I knew 1,000 little girls who hated it when Rapunzel loses her golden hair at the end and I’m one of them. Maybe Disney is trying to make all the little girls with greenish-blonde hair such as my children inherited (except that one flaming redhead) feel good about themselves. There’s a fine line between the escapism provided by fairy tales and unhealthy idealism. Maybe Disney didn’t want to glorify one hair color over another. But we pretty much have a princess for every hair color, ethnicity, persuasion… pretty much everything but body type and even that is soon to change. Explain to me why Rapunzel isn’t allowed to keep her cool glowing hair? I don’t know what the answer to any of this is.

Also, I have questions. Like, are Flynn and Rapunzel hooking up immediately? Because I imagine, just out of the tower, Rappy McPunzelton is a bit naïve and likely to be taken advantage of still and frankly I don’t trust Flynn yet.

Anyway. Cute movie. The horse needs his own movie. It was funny slowly realizing the horse was running the show, not so much his rider. Great stuff. 

WHY ARE THE PIECES TO MOTHER GOTHEL’S CUPCAKE SO HARD TO FIND!?!? Sorry. Unrelated issue. I’m okay now. Although if anyone has the Mother Gothel cupcake I’ll gladly pay you for it.