Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter writes:
It would have been nice if Disney's self-touted 50th animated feature were one of its best, a film that could stand with the studio's classics, but the world will have to make do with "Tangled," a passably entertaining hodgepodge of old and new animation techniques, mixed sensibilities and hedged commercial calculations.And Justin Change for Variety (subscription required) agrees, saying:
After last year's "The Princess and the Frog" grossed an underwhelming $104 million domestically, Disney execs opted to change the title of the new film from "Rapunzel" to the more gender-neutral "Tangled." If that suggests a vote of no confidence in traditional princess fare (imagine if "The Little Mermaid" had been called "Beached"), the hipper moniker does underscore the film's odd, somewhat perplexing mix of sensibilities -- pitched somewhere between Disney classicism and the self-conscious storybook quality of DreamWorks' "Shrek" movies or, at best, Stephen Sondheim's "Into the Woods."Even more biased, self-proclaimed Disney fans, like those writing for The Disney Blog, conclude:
...while Tangled is not perfect, it is definitely entertaining and proof that Disney Animation is slowly returning to the right track creatively.Color me less than enthused.
If tracking remains soft and Tangled underperforms, matching The Princess and the Frog's grosses or worse yet grossing less than that film's disappointing figures, where does Disney go from there?