DAC 51: Winnie the Pooh

Winnie the Pooh - 7.0/10

To be honest, there isn't a whole lot I can say about this film that I didn't already say about the first one. They're pretty much exactly the same in tone and theme: very low-key and relaxed. There was humor in this one - some of it genuinely funny, but not over the top. The medium awareness thing was still in effect, and the characters' interactions with the narrator and the book itself were entertaining.

A couple of key differences caught my attention, the first of which being the voice cast. Obviously they're all replacements, and the problem with that is that they're imitating the performances of others instead of creating their own characters, and so at times the performances seemed rather forced. The only one who seemed natural the entire time was Pooh himself, and I think that's because he's such an iconic character that he's easy to do.

There was also some CGI, which was honestly quite jarring. This is probably the only time you'll ever hear me express a preferences for the old "sketchy" style. It just works with this setting, and the animation for much of this film, even the non-CG, was too clean.

Maybe these criticisms are based solely on a "they changed it now it sucks" mentality, but to be honest I was never really all that invested in Pooh to begin with so it doesn't bother me all that much.

All in all, a pleasant film and not a bad way to spend an hour, but kind of an anticlimactic one to go out on.

DAC 50: Tangled

Tangled - 8.7/10

I've seen this before, of course. I saw it in theaters when it first came out (I was really excited about it), and I've seen it a few times since. I am quite fond of it for several reasons.

If Tiana was the most admirable of the Disney princesses, then Rapunzel is the most badass. I mean seriously, she saves the day more than anyone else in this film: swinging on her hair like a rope, getting an entire bad guy bar to burst into song, stopping a rampaging horse on a mission...it's awesome. And really, everyone in this film is badass in their own way. The male lead fights off a whole band of palace guards with a frying pan, and then proceeds to sword fight the horse with it (which is hilarious). And the horse - my god, the horse. He is perhaps the most badass of them all. It was a pretty badass movie for a fairy tale, that's all I'm sayin'.

And what an interesting take. Besides the whole stolen at birth, locked in a tower, long hair thing, most of this story was pretty much original on Disney's part. I like that; it sets it apart from their other classic fairy tale movies which were, let's face it, kind of similar. The computer animation was on a whole new level as well and while part of me will always prefer the hand-drawn style, I gotta admit it was some of the most impressive I've ever seen in Western animation. The hair alone was simply spectacular.

Despite my gushing, there were a few aspects of the film that were in the "good, not great" territory and thus caused it to fall just a *bit* short of other modern fairy tale pictures like Beauty and the Beast and The Princess and the Frog. The songs were good and I liked them all, but nothing spectacular like "Almost There" or "Be Our Guest". Certainly nowhere near "Under the Sea". Also, while Mandy Moore has a great singing voice, I'm not sure Zach Levi can quite measure up to her. Again, he wasn't bad by any means, but when paired with a former pop star the contrast in their ability is kind of noticeable. Finally, there weren't any anachronisms or anything, but there were one or two instances of modern-style speech. But at this point I'm really just nit-picking.

One more thing I'd like to touch on: the villain. She is very similar to Lady Tremaine in that her villainy mostly involves taking complete control over another person's life, but unlike the former she chooses to do it with prolonged emotional manipulation. She warns Rapunzel about the selfishness and cruelty of the world, while we the viewers know (and Rapunzel eventually learns) that she herself exemplifies these traits far more than anyone else in the film. What's more, while it is made quite clear that what she cares about most is Rapunzel's magic hair, it is left ambiguous if any of the affection she shows towards Rapunzel is genuine or all just an act. I really like that - especially because if it is real, that makes her actions so much more heinous since she is essentially putting herself before someone she loves rather than just manipulating a naive girl for her own benefit. Kind of like if Long John Silver in Treasure Planet had gone the other way.

In short then, the story was great, the characters were great, the animation was great, and everything else was pretty darn good. Disney magic, plain and simple.



P.S. After watching all 50, I watched this, which was awesome.