alobear | Tangled review

What better way to spend a solitary Saturday afternoon than fighting my way through crowds of tiny, annoying children to enjoy the latest Disney offering?

Tangled wasn't as good overall as I'd hoped from the enthusiastic Empire review, but it was very silly, and sections of it were a lot of fun. Interestingly, the action sequences stood out, whilst the more heart-warming aspects of the plot fell a little flat. As is often the case with Disney, the animal sidekicks were highlights - Maximus the palace guard horse did an entertaining if rather bizarre impression of a blood hound throughout, and Pascal the chameleon stole the show whenever he was on screen.

Rapunzel herself was occasionally annoying, and the practicalities of all that hair were never realistically portrayed - I guess its magical nature could be used to explain how it remained perpetually tangle free and never caught on anything or got dirty when she was dragging it through the forest, not to mention how heavy it must have been; but I thought there were missed opportunities there.

Flynn Rider, our eponymous hero, was pretty fantastic - even more so when his panicked cries at one point tipped me off to who was voicing him - Zachary Levi of Chuck fame. Anyone familiar with that show will know why it took frantic protestations to identify him.

Possibly the most amusing moment, however, came towards the end of the credits (I waited to see if there would be a post-credits sequence but was out of luck) when I noticed a listing for Caffeination - the crew on this film must have really liked their coffee!

Fun but not stellar.