Fairy-tale rescues by handsome princes are out. Collaborative adventures with cute bandits are in. That's the 411 from Tangled, Disney's new (yet not quite novel), musical (yet not quite memorable), 3-D (yet so what) animated retelling of the Grimm brothers' Rapunzel. Abducted from her royal parents in infancy and locked in a tower by the witchy Mother Gothel, Rapunzel (Mandy Moore) sees a chance for escape when she lets down her freaky, mile-long, Garnier-ed tresses, and up comes Flynn Rider (Zachary Levi).
Flynn's a thief on the run who's toting royal jewels in his satchel, but in this fairy-tale world, he only steals because he's basically a nice-guy underachiever who needs a better outlet for his leadership abilities. Rapunzel asks him to introduce her to the world outside. He does, and they have the greatest date ever. Mother is boiling mad, but too bad for her. (She's voiced, by the way, by Donna Murphy, a firecracker thrown into the sedate voice-over cast.) Animal pals from the Disney farm that pop up here include Flynn's temperamental horse, and for Rapunzel, a skeptical pet frog. Not to worry, there's also a Disney den of big, comically dumb-looking bad guys who turn sweet when Rapunzel sings to them. Because Happily Ever After never goes out of fashion.
