Blu-Ray Review: Gorgeous Visuals of ‘Tangled’ Make it Perfect Fit For HD

Submitted by BrianTT on April 12, 2011 - 9:22am

CHICAGO – There are very few animated movies that look as stunning as “Tangled” does on Blu-ray. The grass of the land around Rapunzel’s tower, her infamous hair, even the leaves floating in the background — the film has a third dimension even on a standard television. It’s visually striking. The script/story is just so-so and the overall product doesn’t hold a candle to the best animation of 2010 — “Toy Story 3,” “How to Train Your Dragon,” and “The Illusionist” — but this is still a gorgeous movie that will be even more so if you have a Blu-ray player.

Blu-Ray Rating: 3.5/5.0

Is anyone else surprised it took this long for Disney to get to the story of Rapunzel? They probably couldn’t figure out how to adequately embody her magical locks in the days before CGI. Now that the technology has caught up to the imagination, we have “Tangled,” a sweet, well-meaning tale of a girl finding the truth about her background while exploring the world for the first time.

“Tangled” is essentially built from the same foundation as a dozen other Disney movies — the coming-of-age story. From Pinocchio to Belle, Disney movies are often about that wondrous time in which people adventure into the great unknown for the first time. No wonder we love to travel and see new worlds as much as we do — we’ve been trained to by our children’s entertainment.

Tangled was released on Blu-Ray and DVD on March 29th, 2011
Photo credit: Walt Disney Home Video

The adventurer this time is Rapunzel (Mandy Moore), a princess whose hair has the power to keep people young. A witch named Mother Gothel (Donna Murphy) kidnaps her and locks her in a tower while her parents and their people light lanterns every year on their missing daughter’s birthday. Rapunzel has seen the lights in the distant sky and longs to get closer to them, not knowing their direct relation to her past and potential future, but Mother Gothel keeps her locked up, only allowing her to paint, read, and play with her pet chameleon.

Rapunzel’s life changes when a runaway thief named Flynn Rider (Zachary Levi) stumbles on her tower and the two form an unlikely partnership (and, of course, inevitable romance). Flynn escorts Rapunzel to the city and she’s, literally, surrounded by the lights. Will the captured princess fall for the charismatic thief? Will she discover the secret about her past and the wonders of the world?

Tangled was released on Blu-Ray and DVD on March 29th, 2011
Photo credit: Walt Disney Home Video

“Tangled” is a very sweet movie. It’s impossible not to like, especially with the stellar HD transfer granted a film that is easily one of the most visually striking animated movies ever made. The character design and technical accomplishments of “Tangled” are the best thing about the movie.

Call me old-fashioned, but I’m a fan of movies where the script, characters, or music overpower the visuals, not the other way around. I loved looking at “Tangled” but never really cared about the story of Rapunzel and Flynn. It’s a sweet movie, but not quite a great one. The music isn’t quite memorable enough and the same goes for the dialogue. You’d have to be quite an a-hole to not at least enjoy this beautiful film but it doesn’t have that intangible magic of the best of Disney.

However, the Blu-ray does stand nicely next to other recent Disney releases. I’ve already mentioned the quality of the video transfer, the best of the year to date, and the audio transfer is similarly spectacular. I’m a huge Disney collector and would pick up “Tangled” no matter what but if you need an extra reason to buy it, the technical presentation is one of the best they’ve ever produced.

And, of course, the special features are typically extensive and varied enough to be of interest to the entire family. There are deleted scenes, featurettes, and even an interesting bit called “50th Animated Feature Countdown,” in which the previous Disney movies are all featured, like a recap from 1-50 with “Tangled” being the 50th animated motion picture in the Disney canon. See how many your kids can recognize from the brief clips and decide for yourself where “Tangled” ranks on one of the most influential top 50 lists of all time.

Special Features:
o Deleted Scenes
o Untangled: The Making Of A Fairy Tale
o Original Storybook Openings
o DVD Copy
o And More!

“Tangled” features voice work by Mandy Moore, Zachary Levi, and Donna Murphy. It was written by Dan Fogelman and directed by Nathan Greno & Byron Howard. It was released on Blu-ray and DVD on March 29th, 2011.