So this is going to be something a little different because I’m talking about something that’s well… good. But the site is called Guilty Your Pleasure and when it comes to guilty pleasures, Disney movies are right up there. Not because they’re poor quality, because they’re not but as 21 year old male, saying that I legitimately, unironically love Beauty and the Beast… it’s a tad bit awkward. Anyway, without further ado…

 

We had the greatest fucking childhood ever. Seriously. That fact that we grew up in the 90s is better than saying we come from royalty. We had the best cable television, before everything sold out and became endless marathons for mediocre programming. We had the best video games: SNES, Genesis, N64, Playstation. We had the best. fucking. Saturday morning cartoons. But lastly, and most importantly, we were kids during the Disney Renaissance, which for those of you who aren’t geeks it’s the time between 1989 and 1999 when Disney kicked the mediocrity to the curb and gave us classic after classic: Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Lion King. These films were not only massive pop icons spawning broadway plays, Saturday morning cartoons, millions of merchandise and not only helped bring back the American public interest in Disney but they proved that animation can be far more than kid-tainment. And once Beauty and the Beast became a huge Oscar contender, the animation genre officially left the kids table of Hollywood.

But then once the 90s left, something happened. It may have been the inner circle “DisneyWar” drama or the fact that the generation raised on these films were growing up but it’s almost like someone at a pitch meeting said: “You know how we captivated audiences for the past 10 years? Yeah, let’s stop doing that”. Suddenly, the extravagant musicals were pushed aside for awkward experimentation through Dinosaur, Atlantis: The Lost Empire and Treasure Island. I was a pre-teen and too hyped up on the lasers and sci-fi action to notice the Disney magic was gone. And although it kind of flickered with Lilo and Stitch. Disney plummeted again going from bad (Home on the Range) to worse (Chicken Little) to Beverly Hills Chihuahua. Then, when all hope was lost (similar to the 80s), Pixar founder John Lasseter, shook the Disney Studio by it’s foundation and brought it back to its roots.

Princess and the Frog were the baby steps and Tangled is the toddler stage of the re-transformation of Disney animation. At first I was suspicious: the awkward name change, the slapstick first trailer and looking at the visuals in stills it looked like something Dreamworks would make. Boy I was wrong. Tangled is arguably the new Little Mermaid, building blocks for Disney to create something even far more imaginative and captivating. Not that Tangled isn’t a fantastic film on it’s own, because it is. It manages to be just phenomenal as the other great animated flicks released this year while offering it’s own strong points.

Granted, Tangled, while it tries, doesn’t necessarily have the pure magic of some of Disney’s finest. The music is average which is odd coming from Disney veteran Alan Menken and it takes a while for the story take off. But once it takes off it becomes one of the better romantic comedies in recent memory. Both of the main characters are genuinely likable. Flynn Rider falls perfectly under the egotistical rouge character arc but still has some mystery and heart that it doesn’t feel too cliche while Rapunzel, much like Tiana in Princess and the Frog, has the genuine Disney princess charm without all the underlining sexism that previous ones had. Animated characters aside they have great chemistry with witty banter that the Kate Hudson movies only dreamed of having.

But the run of the mill Disney romance isn’t what makes Tangled so great. It’s the visuals, visuals that are arguably the best artistic use of CG animation ever. Yes, that includes Pixar’s work. Yes, even Wall-e. The animated characters move with this vivid motion that I’ve never really seen outside of something hand drawn and the backgrounds look like grand mural paintings that only get more extravagant as the film continues.

It also manages to make 3D worth the money, utilizing a similar style of Avatar or Pixar’s  work that 3D should be used to enhance depth, not for gimmicks. But the 3D really takes off during the lantern festival/”I Can See the Light” sequence which is so gorgeous, using 3D to such momentous ways that it makes all the gimmicky stuff in other films tolerable. This scene alone will restore your faith in 3D after countless films tried so hard to destroy the already small integrity it had.

Tangled isn’t the best film of 2010 (Black Swan has that title in a choke-hold) or even the best animated film (Toy Story 3 was just too damn spectacular) but it’s a proud runner up for both. Tangled is not only thoroughly entertaining but like Princess and the Frog it reminds the audience that Disney, even with it’s current tween obsession, awful straight to DVD sequels and the unholy Air Buddies series, still knows what it’s doing when it comes to feature length animation. They’re releasing a Winnie the Pooh film with a hand drawn style that looks unchanged since the 70s/80s and another traditionally animated film based on a Philip K. Dick story. Two great films in and I think we can safely say it: The Disney from our childhood is back. In full force. Hide yo kids. Hide yo wife.