Oh, yes.  Mrs. Potts said it best about this story.  It’s long been one of my favorite fairy tales.  One of the things I find fascinating about it is the fact that it has numerous incarnations throughout history, and in numerous cultures.  It seems everywhere in the world has a similar story.  I’ve already reviewed the book.  Now, I’ll review the movie.

Beastly is the story of  “Beauty and the Beast,”  set in our time, based on Alex Flinn’s book of the same name.  Now, the book was wonderful.  I devoured it in a couple of days.  The big question is whether or not the movie held up.

The plot concerns Kyle Kingsbury, the handsome, spoiled son of a wealthy news anchor.  He’s popular, and when unpopular Kendra ruffles his feathers, Kyle decides to ask her to the dance to be cruel to her (he actually has NO intentions of really taking her out).  When he shows up at the dance with another, prettier and more popular girl, Kyle finds out that Kendra is a witch, and she’d given him one last chance to show he’s worthwhile.  She turns him into an ugly thing and tells him he has limited time, and in that time he must find a girl who loves him despite his looks.  His father, after taking him to numerous doctors that can’t help him, shuts Kyle in an isolated apartment with a blind tutor and a housekeeper.  Then he meets classmate Lindy, who he’d never noticed much before.

The plot follows the book pretty well.  There were some small changes, mainly concerning  the housekeeper, how Kyle’s curse was finally lifted, the amount of time Kendra gives him is shortened,  and they cut out how Lindy’s father essentially sold her to Kyle, and a switch of when he made the greenhouse for his roses.  Largely just small stuff that I can deal with.  They didn’t make Kyle look like he did in the book at the beast, however.  They swapped out the book’s Jean Cocteau type beast look for Kyle with a bald head and face of tattoos, metal pieces, and burn type lumps.  I also missed what they had in the book about Kyle talking on the internet with other fairy tale figures, such as the little mermaid.  I always thought that was great.

As far as casting goes, Alex Pettyfer was pretty much perfect.  He’s definitely a pretty boy.  And Vanessa Hudgens is lovely, to be sure, but she didn’t fit the look of Lindy at all, who was described in the book as a cream complected redhead.   Mary Kate Olson also doesn’t fit Kendra.  She didn’t look ugly to me the way Kendra was described in the book to start with.  Mary Kate acted the part well, however.  Neil Patrick Harris was also perfect as the blind tutor, who helps Kyle come to understand how you should treat a woman.

The overall dialogue was a bit awkward at the beginning, but as you sit through the movie it does get better, and by the end, you’re cheering.  There are also amusing moments, such as when the tattoo of the rose bush on Kyle’s arm, which shows how much time he has left in his year, grows a string of lights and starts glowing in bright colors at Christmastime.

All in all, it’s an imperfect portrayal of the book, but it’s better than some I’ve seen.  I enjoyed watching, and it was a great feel good fantasy.  I’d recommend it for 13 and up, and especially for a romantic date.

3/5

One of the posters for "I am Number Four."

This weekend I went with my husband and saw I Am Number Four.  I find SciFi movies great, although I wouldn’t write one myself.  I’m more into fantasy.   There’s nothing like a good SciFi movie right before a nice dinner of sushi with your husband, though.  The movie was based off the book by Pittacus Lore.  The thing that makes this unusual, however, although I’m sure the book is better, as it usually is, is that this book is the first of 6 planned young adult novels, and the rights were bought to make this book into a movie before the book was even published last year.

The plot of the movie concerns 9 alien teenagers.  They’ve come with their protectors after another alien race has destroyed their planet.  These teenagers

Four (AKA John Smith) and Sarah

have blended in to our population, since they look human, and they are the last of their kind.  Unfortunately, their old enemies have hunted them down and are now murdering them in a specific order, and our main character is the titular number 4.  After learning number 3 has been killed, 4 leaves Florida with his protector for a small town in Ohio, hoping to evade detection.  In their new digs, 4 decides that to avoid boredom he’ll go to school, against his protector’s advice and judgment.  And so begins the grand adventure.

This was a really good movie.  I love Alex Pettyfer, who plays 4.  He’s just a gorgeous guy.  Men would probably like the girl who plays 6, too, Teresa Palmer.  As women go she’s pretty hot.  Personally, I liked Dianna Agron better, who plays Sarah, 4′s love interest.  The best part, however, was the beagle who played 4′s dog.  He was so cute,  and he was really cool as a character.  The music was a mix of electronica, rock and metal, which was good, and really fitting for the movie.

Six helps Four kick butt!

The only real problems I had were two things:  1. The enemy and 2. the “have to kill them in order” aspect of the premise.  The enemy was not only not very scary, but the dialogue and its delivery came off as pretty silly at times.  For the second one, they really didn’t explain at all why the enemy aliens had to kill the teenagers in an order, or what determined the order.  Now I haven’t read the book yet, but I’ve done enough looking to know why that is, but they didn’t reveal or explain any of that in the movie, so it comes off as a somewhat silly premise.

Parents should beware that this movie is PG-13 for reason.  There’s  no sex or nudity, but there’s quite a bit of violence, what with the fighting to escape.  Overall, however, if you’re 16 or older, it’s a great film and a fun ride.

3.5/5

The main cast of Daria, from L to R, Jake Morgendorfer, Helen Morgendorfer, Quinn Morgendorfer, Daria Morgendorfer, and Jane Lane

Lately I’ve been re-watching MTV’s old series,  Daria.  From her humble beginnings on Mike Judge’s horrible, tasteless and raunchy show Beavis and

Daria on Beavis and Butthead

Butthead, mainly as a foil for the two leads, Daria’s been known for her wit, sarcasm, intelligence, and observations about life.  I don’t watch much MTV, if any, but I used to watch this show often and I really loved it.  Here are my top 5 reasons, now that I’m re-watching it, that Daria is STILL awesome after all these years.

5.  The show’s observations.  Whether they’re pointing out the silliness of malls or high school, the shallowness of popular teenage girls, stupidity of your average high school jocks, or how feminazis emasculate men, Daria and her friends always have something informative and pithy to point out about all these and life in general.

4.  Daria’s parents and sister, Quinn.  Whether Helen is being too busy trying to break the glass ceiling and emasculating her husband Jake, Jake’s busy having an almost heart attack over something small, or Quinn’s discussing blush colors and application techniques with her fashion club or sneaking out on a date, Daria’s family’s always good for a look at a modern dysfunctional family not to mention more than a few laughs.

3.  The side characters.  The punk band “Mystik Spiral,” (I LOVED their song “Every Dog has its Day”) jocks Kevin and Mac,  cheerleader Brittany,

Kevin and Britney talk to Jane and Daria

overachiever Jodi,  the fashion club, local pervert Upchuck, Quinn’s would-be suitors the 3 J’s, not to mention all the varied teachers and Mrs. Li the principal, Daria’s world of Lawndale High school is full of varied, hilarious side characters and is just as much a laugh as her home life, maybe even more so.

2. Daria’s bedroom.  Who wouldn’t want sole occupation of  a padded basement room formally occupied by an  insane person?  Super cool, even if it is a little creepy!  Enough said.

Daria and Jane

1. Daria and Jane.  Like two peas in a pod, Daria’s acerbic wit and sarcasm match Jane’s cynicism perfectly, making them the best friends they are, and so relate-able to the rest of us.   We all feel like Daria and Jane sometimes.  Even when Daria messes up the dye for Jane’s hair in “Dye Dye my Darling” we know how they both feel and understand that they won’t be arguing for long.  We understand their boredom in and hatred of school with its PC crap and incompetent teachers, and understand their dislike of all the shallowness, silliness, and hypocrisy that they see around them.  Their mutual love of the TV show “Sick, Sad World” and their love of teasing Kevin and Brittany, and Quinn and the fashion club, are just three of the things they have in common and enjoy together.

These 5 things are just the beginnings of what made the show cool then and still great now.  Time to grab the complete collection on DVD if you’re a fan, and relive the fun!

Emma Stone struts her lying slutty stuff as Olive in "Easy A"

The plot concerns a girl named Olive, who was totally invisible in her high school.  She doesn’t want to go camping with her only friend, Rhiannon, over the weekend, so she concocts a story about having a date with a college student as an excuse to bow out, which balloons into a lie about sleeping with said “student” that quickly spreads around her school.  Hearing about the lie, a gay friend of hers asks her to help him out by pretending to have a one night stand with him at a party, thus making him look straight.  He also offers to pay Olive for her help.  And this is just the beginning of the mess.  It continues on from there as Olive continues to be sucked into lies and becomes a pariah at school.  Olive also happens to be reading The Scarlet Letter in her english class, and not only starts to feel like the persecuted heroine of the classic book, but embraces the part to the point that Olive is wearing slutty outfits to school with a big red letter A sewn onto the chest.

That this is a tasteless premise for a  movie goes without saying.  Even if she doesn’t have actual sex with anyone, Olive

Amanda Bynes as perky Christian hypocrite Marianne

has made herself essentially a prostitute by the end of the story.  It also doesn’t help that Amanda Bynes’s character, Marianne, is a Christian activist at school, but Bynes portrays her as not only annoying, but a hypocrite as well, and as a Christian, myself, I find that more than a little offensive, especially considering Hollywood’s constant portrayal of us as such.  Some may say I’m a bit oversensitive, but Hollywood has portrayed Christians that way for at least 30 years and I’ve been sick and tired of such portrayals for  years now.  Although there’s no sex, there’s a lot of jumping on beds and moaning and groaning to fool eavesdroppers into believing that’s what was going on, which I didn’t find terribly funny.

All in all, I can’t say I’d recommend this at all, even if you don’t have kids.  The premise was bad, the humor wasn’t very humorous, and it was just a shallow, vapid movie in general.  A good soundtrack isn’t enough to save an otherwise bad movie.  Don’t even waste money or time renting this.  That’s an hour and a half of my life I’ll never get back.  I wish I’d done my homework on this one.

2/5

The first reason is ego, mainly.  Hollywood is chock full of big egos.  It’s largely full of people who would kill for attention, and MUST have attention in order to feel the slightest bit good about themselves.  Jim Carrey, for example, would continually disrupt his class in grade school until his teachers started giving  him scheduled class time, CLASS TIME, to “perform” for his classmates.  Then there’s the famous quote by Sally Field upon winning the Oscar in 1984, often misquoted,  “…you like me!  Right now, you like me!” which can also be seen as evidence of this need.  With so many big egos, it’s entirely possible that some writers think they know better than the original authors.  They may think that the script needs more excitement, or faster pacing, as things in movies keep getting more and more action oriented, fast paced, and grandiose.  This need for attention, particularly by actors, may also help drive this move towards grandiosity.  However, this also destroys the original author’s intent.  The Seeker: The Dark is Rising can be considered a good example of this.  The pacing of the book is somewhat slow.  I can only imagine that the scriptwriter thought it would be an improvement to change things, shake things up, as it were, and speed up the pacing.

The next possible reason for movies based on books sucking is the somewhat ironic notion that, as stated eloquently in the musical City of Angels (not to be mistaken for the Meg Ryan movie) “Authors unprepared to take a stab at this collaborative art/must suppress their egos and part/ with the notion/ that in motion pictures words are carved in marble.”  Movie making is very much a collaborative art, with many participants, actors, directors, costumers and composers for a start.  Sometimes a script may be changed so many times that it’s no longer recognizable from the author’s original creation.  Sometimes a script may have many writers working on it, and most people will liken this to that old adage “Too many cooks spoil the soup.”  This is a good rule of thumb for movies.  If you see more than 3 scriptwriters listed in the credits, you might want to lower your expectations of the movie and perhaps even consider renting it instead of going to the theater and spending a lot of money on tickets.  With 4 writing credits, including the author of the original book, Love and Other Drugs falls into this catagory.

The final reason I think that Hollywood makes movies that suck based on books, is the lack of intelligence in the Hollywood community as a whole.  We’re talking about a vast group of people not only dedicated to youth and shallow good looks, but who largely follow a religion that was started by an author as a joke, Scientology.  These are people who think The Hurt Locker was the best movie of last year, and that “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp” was the best song the year it came out, so no sense or good taste.  I don’t think that many of them read much other than their own scripts, and thus don’t understand what readers expect.  They don’t understand that a book, or book series, sells a lot and has numerous readers for a reason, and if you change what made the book good, then the readers and fans no longer like or want what you have created.  They purchase the rights for greed, and then change what it is about the book that makes it so profitable.  The Harry Potter movies from 4 on exemplify this, and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has also fallen prey to this problem, along with numerous other movies based on books.  I think this is the single biggest contributor to the magnitude of the suckitude of movies based on books.

Don’t get me wrong, however, there are some very good movies based on books out there.  The Last Unicorn, and Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone are some very good examples of good movies that stick closely to their source material, as is the newer production of  The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.  The key to these, I think, is that their books are fairly short, and so they’re very easy to adapt.  Either way, Hollywood really should care about its source material more than it does, because the readers of the original books care what the movie is like.  They’ve done a good job in the past, and I understand that some books are so big, with so much happening in them, that they need to be cut short, but adding scenes that weren’t there, and changing the plot, such as in Blood and Chocolate (although I actually liked that movie.  I like happy endings  better, and that book had a sad one) is not generally a good thing.

Hollywood, are you listening?  I certainly hope so, but I doubt it.

Tron: Legacy Poster. Note the similarities to the original.

Most people have at least heard of Tron or seen pictures from this 80′s Disney movie.  I

The original Tron poster.

didn’t get to see it when it came out.  I was 9 years old at the time, and I wanted to see it, but I didn’t.  It may look very cheesey now, but this movie was state of the art in 1982.  No one had seen anything like it before.  The script was amateurish, but what set it apart was the CG effects, which movies hadn’t really done before, the skintight catsuits edged in light that everyone wore, and its ideas about AI and computer programs and programmers.  The week before Christmas, my husband and I went to see it’s sequel, Tron: Legacy.  Nearly 30 years after the first one, it’s certainly more than time.  Frankly, I count it as one more indication that Hollywood has lost almost all its imagination, but that’s for another time.

Tron: Legacy takes up where the first left off, in a way.  Alan Bradley (Bruce Boxleitner of Tron and Babylon 5) and Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges of  Tron, Iron Man, The Mirror Has Two Faces, Starman, and The Last Unicorn) have taken up leadership of the company after vanquishing Dillinger and the MCP in the first movie.  Flynn also got married.  His wife died, but not before having a son.  Kevin Flynn, however, can’t leave the world of computer programs that he discovered alone.  Together with Tron the security program Flynn is working to rebuild the world that the MCP ravaged and nearly destroyed.  One day, Flynn goes off to work and doesn’t come home, leaving his young son, Sam, in the care of Sam’s grandparents.  Skip to present day.  Alan has helped to raise Sam, who is a majority shareholder in his father’s company, but isn’t nearly ready to run it.  Alan lets Sam know that he got a pager on his personal pager, whose number only Flynn knew.  And so Sam is off on a quest to find his long lost father.

The CG graphics were great, and even better than in the first movie.  They especially did a great job making Jeff Bridges look young again.  The light cycles looked better than ever, as did the fighting discs.  The city of programs looked absolutely fantastic.  It looked marvelous in 3D, and was well worth the extra price for admission.  I’d say that this is THE way to see Tron: Legacy if you can.

The music was great if you like Techno, which I do a little bit.  My husband fell in love with the soundtrack, which features music  from French electronica duo, Daft Punk.  They are both DJs and composers, and the music was interesting, and fit perfectly with the show.

Quorra and Sam

This show isn’t perfect, however.  The script was not very deep, although that’s to be expected from an action flick.  The action was good, but the acting was only average, another sad side effect one sometimes comes across with action flicks.  My favorite character was Quorra (pronounced Cora), the AI played by Olivia Wilde.  Sam was also ok, but average acting from the handsome Garrett Hedlund.  Jeff Bridged had to be my favorite out of the whole show.  I’ve liked him a long time and it was good to see him show up again.  It was actually good to see a lot of the old characters come back and to see what had become of them.  They even had Dillinger’s son in a company board meeting, played by an uncredited Cillian Murphy, who I like a lot.

This being Disney, there’s nothing really objectionable here, unless you don’t like women in skin-tight, rubbery catsuits embellished with lights.  There’s violence, but nothing horrible.  There’s no sex, although there’s very light romance.  Some parents might object a bit to the scene where Sam is dressed for battle by 4 program girls, but there’s nothing shown at all.  And as far as the ending goes, they left it open for another sequel, as what happened in the climax, I think, will come back to bite the hero Sam in the rear later.  It is a nice addition to the original movie, but the poor acting and light script keep it from being truly great, but it’s not entirely bad, either.  It’s definitely a film worth a look.

3/5

Poster for Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Click for the full image.

Many of us,  myself included, grew up reading C.S. Lewis’s Narnia series.  For those completely weird people who still don’t know, Narnia is a fantasy land, with talking animals, castles and the like, ruled by the great, magical lion, Aslan.  This land is repeatedly visited by the Pevensie children, Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy, who are growing up in the shadow of WWII England.  Most people, if they haven’t read the books, seen the cartoon for The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe or seen any of the BBC’s Narnia series, have at least heard of the books.

This time around the plot revolves around Edmund and Lucy, as Peter and Susan were

Click for full image. From left to right, Eustace Scrubb(can't see unless full size), Edmund Pevensie, Lucy Pevensie, King Caspian

told by Aslan in Prince Caspian that they were too old to return to Narnia again.  They are accompanied by their jerk of a cousin, Eustace Scrubb, who is transported with them into a picture of a Narnian ship, the Dawn Treader, Prince (now king) Caspian’s ship.  Caspian’s been on a mission to find 7 lords who served under his father and were lost some time after his Uncle Miraz’s reign began.  The plot was changed from the book, but they kept to the basics and also kept to the spirit of the book as well, which was nice, although I wished they’d kept better to the story.  It didn’t detract from the fun, though.

Aslan the golden lion

The cast is mostly the same for the leads, with the addition of Eustace.  It was also nice to see Reepicheep the mouse again.  He’s such a cutie!  Eustace I hated, and I remembered liking him better than Edmund when reading the books.  He seemed to learn faster than Edmund did.  But then, it’s been many years since I read the book, too.  One funny thing about the actor’s delivery of Eustace’s lines was his unwavering speed.  I kept wondering if and when the boy would finally breathe.  This was how he spoke during the

The bow of the Dawn Treader

parts of the film where he was playing the jerk.  When he changes, his speech slows down.  It was also bittersweet at the end, though I won’t reveal what happens.  My favorite scene was when Aslan changes Eustace from a dragon back to a boy.  Overall, the acting was first rate.

Which brings me to the special effects, the highlight of the Narnia movies.  This was every bit as good as its predecessors.  The CG for Eustace as dragon was especially good.  I loved it.  Not to mention the pool where everything that touches the water turns to gold.  That was always a great moment to me.  I liked it in the book.  The CG was beautiful and overall convincing to me.  The music was beautiful and symphonic, with a fun end song by Carrie Underwood.

All told, this was a great film, whether you go alone or take the family.  It might have a few scary moments for the really little ones, but nothing bad at all.  The only thing keeping this from a 5 is the fact it doesn’t follow the book exactly.

4/5

The poster for Eclipse. Click to see the full picture.

Ah, Twilight.  A young teen’s supernatural Harlequin romance.  At this point, most people have at least heard about it even if they haven’t seen it or read it.  And most people either love it or hate it.  It’s even got its own spoof movies that’re on disc now.  I’m, of course, referring to Vampires Suck and Taintlight.  There are also spoof books entitled Nitelight: A Parody by the Harvard Lampoon and TwiLite: A Parody by Stephen Jenner.  Suffice it to say there’s strong feelings from both sides, but what no one can debate is that this is possibly the biggest phenomenon since Harry Potter got his invitation to Hogwarts.  I missed seeing it in the theater, and so as soon as it came out last on disc Friday at Midnight (and NO I wasn’t in line to get it.  I actually went to bed and waited until Saturday morning.) I bought my own copy and watched it that evening.

Each of the Twilight movies thus far, Eclipse included, has had a different director.  Catherine Hardwicke (director of 13 and The Nativity Story) directed the first one, Chris Weitz (director of American Pie, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and The Golden Compass)  directed New Moon, and David Slade (director of Hard Candy and 30 Days of Night) directed Eclipse.  In hindsight, he was a great choice, due to his experience with grit and action.  This is a very gritty film, compared to the other two.  I think this is more than partly due to Bella’s being in the grand, romantic dream of new love in the first two films, and in this one, she needs to make a decision and get real about her relationship with the vampire Edward Cullen, particularly about the fact that he’s an old-fashioned sort of guy and wants to marry her.

Bella and Edward share a moment of happiness in their meadow

The plot takes up where New Moon let off.  Edward asks Bella again to marry him.  She doesn’t want to, because her parents divorced and so she’s not so sure any marriage will work out.  In the meantime, there’ve been a rash of disappearances and murders in Seattle.  The Cullen family knows it’s not just any serial killer, it’s the uncontrollable thirst of newborn vampires, and they also remember that Victoria (who blames Edward for killing her mate, and would like to kill Bella so he can experience the same pain she feels) is still out there, possibly running the group.  So the Cullens need to prepare to once again prepare to defend the vulnerable and human Bella from others bloodsuckers.

We have the same actors we had in the previous films here, and they seem to work really

Bryce Dallas Howard as the evil vampire Victoria.

well together.  We also have one new addition of Bryce Dallas Howard (daughter of director/actor Ron Howard) as Victoria this time around.  I really want her hair.  I mean REALLY want her hair!  I love the great heaping, wild masses of vibrant, bright red curls she has.  I’ve always wanted hair like that.

Jasper and Rosalie

One of the things I loved about this film is that it delves more in-depth into the more interesting backstories of the Cullen clan.  Jasper and Rosalie have possibly the most interesting “how I became a vamp” stories of the series.  It sheds new light on the characters, in particular why Jasper is so uncomfortable around humans all the time and why Rosalie is so cold and harsh, especially with Bella.

There was a lot more action in this film, which  made it far more interesting, in my

Bella and Jacob attend a Quileute tribe coucil meeting.

opinion.  Bella’s not simply basking in the sparkle of her suitor and she’s not whining about him not being around, either (what I hated most about New Moon) This isn’t for kids, due to the violence, but if you’re a teenage Twilight fan, which I am, it’s wonderful.  In fact, I’d say this was the best movie of the three thus far, even with the little angsting there was between Bella, Edward and Jacob the werewolf.  By the way, the CG for the werewolves was better this movie than it was in New Moon.  I can’t wait to see Breaking Dawn: Part 1 when it comes out December of next year.  This movie may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but if you love Vampire romances, and Twilight in particular, it’s a great offering.

4/5

Poster for "Tangled." Click to see full size.

Rapunzel.  Lots of little girls know the story.  It’s made more than one girl want to grow her hair long, including me, not to mention bag herself a real, live prince when she grew up.  Disney just last week released a new movie, “Tangled,” that was based on the story.  On Black Friday this year, I dragged my husband out of the house and ventured into the theater at my local mall to see it.

The story is very different from the original story.  It’s about a magic flower that heals and makes people young that was secretly kept by a witch, Gothel, for centuries.  When the pregnant queen of the land gets deathly ill, the king sends out his men to find this legendary flower, which they bring back and heal the queen with, much to the disgruntlement of Gothel.  The baby, Rapunzel, is born afterwords with brilliantly shining hair.  Gothel deduces that the hair has the properties her flower did, and so she steals the baby and raises the girl in a hidden tower as her own.  When a local thief, Flynn Rider, comes upon the tower while escaping the king’s troops after his latest heist, a now 18 year old Rapunzel sees it as her chance to get out and see the world, and strikes a deal with the handsome thief.

There’s no garden here, no mother with odd cravings for a witch’s vegetables, and Rapunzel isn’t a princess by marriage, but a born one, and it’s her love that’s royalty by marriage, instead of the prince finding marrying her.  The witch doesn’t banish this Rapunzel to the desert, and she doesn’t have the prince’s twins before he finds her at last.  But then, the original story of long hair and teen pregnancy wouldn’t work for Disney’s audiences.

From Left to Right Flynn Rider, Rapunzel, Pascal (green and on her head), and Maximus.

This had a really good cast, to start with.  Singer Mandy Moore plays our long haired heroine, and does a good job with her lovely voice.  Zachary Levi, of

Mother Gothel cousels Rapunzel in "Tangled."

the TV series Chuck and who also plays Dave’s nephew in the Chipmunk’s sequel movie, is appropriately smooth and smarmy as Flynn, and his voice plays well off Mandy’s in their one duet.   Donna Murphy, who plays Dr. Octopus’s wife in Spider-Man 2 and Judy in World Trade Center, does a great job as the witch Gothel.  “Mother Knows Best” was one of the wittier songs of the movie, and Donna did a wonderful job with it.  Ron Perlman, who played Vincent in the 80′s TV show Beauty and the Beast, and Jeffrey Tambor, a character actor with tons of credits to his name but most famous for Three’s Company and Arrested Development, both showed up as extra characters.

The music was by Alan Menken of The Little Shop of Horrors, and a Disney veteran with The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Alladin under his belt, so it goes without saying that the music was good.  The CG was really good, especially during the moments where Rapunzel’s hair would move around with her or glow.  An interesting thing they did to help Rapunzel move around town better at one point is Flynn had 3 little village girls braid her hair up into an extremely thick braid that almost hit her ankles, and put lots of fresh flowers in it.  It was a beautiful effect.  The movement of the hair itself was lovely, and to top it off, the scene with Rapunzel and Flynn in a gondola with paper floating lanterns drifting around them during their duet was just beautiful, and slightly reminiscent of The Little Mermaid’s “Kiss the Girl.”  The characters were fun as well.  I loved the little chameleon, Pascal, who was Rapunzel’s companion.  And Maximus, horse of the head of the king’s guard, was just a scream.

Overall, even with slapstick and a few cliches, there’s a lot to love in this movie.  And it’s good for the entire family.  I not only recommend you bring the kids, but I also recommend you shell out the few extra bucks for the 3d showing.  It’s well worth it.  There’s only one thing I would change about it, really.  I wish it would have been done in hand drawn, cell animation that Disney does so well, and not just completely computer made animation.

4/5