The last time I felt so excited about a Disney animated film was probably back in 1994 with Disney’s pinnacle, The Lion King. Although it was just a child, but the gorgeous singing and dancing scenes, beautiful music and those charming characters and their stories made me tired of watching it over and over again, and “The Lion King” is still a classic in my mind, but I always feel sorry that there is no such exciting animation works after Disney, even though “Mulan” and “Tarzan” are not bad, but then Pixar But after the rise of Pixar and DreamWorks to catch up, so that Hollywood 3D animated films increasingly adult, children look happy adults can also be moved, which almost monopolized the all-ages market, so that Disney’s traditional 2D animation has no way to follow, had to follow the mainstream began to produce 3D animation. Several successive failures let Disney realize that they are not adult Pixar is not a spoof DreamWorks, and thanks to Pixar’s intervention slightly successful “Lightning Dog” is now estimated to have been forgotten by the public. So last year’s “The Princess and the Frog” is not only an attempt to revive 2D animation, but also a continuation of Disney’s expertise in fairy tales of princes and princesses. Although the North American media eventually expressed support and gave a degree of appreciation, but all the audience were busy praising Pixar’s “Flying House” and even Wes Anderson’s halfway decent “The Great Fox Dad”, the return and revival of 2D animation that did not work out led directly to Disney’s next traditional hand-drawn style project “Snow Queen” on hold.
After Pixar’s John Lasseter took over Disney’s animation department, he made efforts to revive 2D animation on the one hand, and on the other hand, he put Disney’s long-shelved Rapunzel on the production schedule and personally supervised the whole process of its production. So “Rapunzel” is, in a way, the culmination of Disney and Pixar, with its excellent 3D technology and the continuation of the traditional fairy tale of the princess and the prince. It is also a strong return to the traditional fairy tale of the prince and princess, and tells us that some simple and beautiful things do not really go out of fashion.
Rapunzel is a princess with magical long hair, her golden hair can bring people back to youth and even back from the dead. The evil old woman Gothel in order to immortalize the princess is still a baby abducted, imprisoned her in a tower in the forest and raised the princess as a mother. Looking forward to the outside world of the princess Rapunzel has been Gothel forbidden to leave the tower, until the thief Flynn Ryder accidentally broke into her mini-world, and she experienced an exciting adventure together.
This story is neither as old as the end of “Toy Story 3”, nor “How to Train Your Dragon” by the human-animal feelings led to a clear theme, not to mention “Despicable Me” in the outstanding character design. Rapunzel” is a simple prince-princess fairy tale route but does not seem childish and pale, but not only for children but also for adult audiences to enjoy a pleasant viewing experience, if the “princess and the frog” is too young, then “Rapunzel” is to achieve a fairy tale can reach, almost perfect all-age audience status. Even though the movie uses the traditional narrative formula of Disney animation in the last century, but the wonderful dialogue and character design make the whole film is always interesting, and the three elements of action, song and dance and humor are cleverly seasoned cooking, and the final product is called a showstopper!
Rapunzel” action scenes can be from the dam collapse landslide grand scenes instantly reduced to confined space; few but fine song and dance scenes compared to similar Disney animated works is a lot of compression, but the first beautiful, especially like the song I’ve Got a Dream in the bar and the sky floating lanterns of I See the Light; humor is also wise and wonderful enough to make people The humor is also wise and wonderful enough to keep people laughing.
The character design is one of the most outstanding merits of “Rapunzel”, the bar alone is impressive enough for the various dreamy thieves. The male protagonist Flynn Ryder’s design by John Lasseter personally supervised, this with bangs a little scruffy gangster-like man actually wears hip boots and tight pants, slightly curved hips is really charming; female protagonist Rapunzel will not be like the previous image of the princess is annoying, a look of innocence and ignorance with a little savage character is really endearing, for example, just escaped from the tower For example, just escaped from the tower after the scene of the inner tangle is cute. Fairy tales, of course, can not lack anthropomorphic animals. Although the princess chameleon is very cute, but in front of the white horse is floating clouds ah floating clouds ~ ~ ~ arrogant and petty but righteous and loyal white horse is one of my favorite role in the whole film, it appeared in an antagonist-like posture but in the end became the hero to save the hero and heroine. Just like “How to Train Your Dragon” in the various flying dragons to simulate the movements of a cat, “Rapunzel” in the white horse is almost a big pet dog! Its every appearance every shot for me is the highlight, the action and expression design is really let me love ah!
The visual effects of “Rapunzel” are unforgettable, because the attributes of the fairy tale make the scenes in the film are so beautiful and mesmerizing. The scene where the hero and heroine are sitting in a canoe, surrounded by sky lanterns floating in the sky, can be described as gorgeous to the eyes of children, but melts the hearts of adult viewers! To me this is one of the most romantic and dreamy scenes in all the movies this year, giving people a brief expectation and fantasy of a beautiful love that does not exist in reality, just like being enchanted to experience a child’s innocence in an instant.
The weak villain may make the story seem a bit tigerish, but the ending of the old woman does seem a bit sloppy. After all, the princess is a healthy, safe and truly “unharmed” role in raising adults, whether she has another agenda or not at all costs selfish, she for the princess in 18 years in a few moments is certainly good and loving. This sloppy treatment reminds me of the old man adventurer in “Flying House”, interestingly the final shot of both villains is a high fall… Awkward. In addition, the small flaws that do not stand up to scrutiny can be ignored for fairy tales, such as “how the hair is long and then not so long” and this kind of problem is really no need to dwell on ╮(╯▽╰)╭…
Personally, I think “Rapunzel” is Disney’s best animated work since “The Lion King”, it has always maintained the purity of a traditional fairy tale, and today can still capture the audience of all ages with this, and this alone is worthy of praise. Maybe it is not as mature as Toy Story 3, not as moving as How to Train Your Dragon, not as cute as Despicable Me, but I personally feel that whether as Disney’s 50th work in the animation kingdom, or as a fun and interesting traditional fairy tale for all ages, Rapunzel is reason enough to nominate and even win the Best Animated Feature at the Oscars.