Sex trouble

Many critics will agree that the story of tangled does not hold up. The ending was surprisingly good. The narrator always has control of what he / she wants you to known. The idea that the narrator is lying, you wouldn't know unless the narrator tells you. Otherwise, what the narrator says is the truth. The acting is decent alongside the movie's production value. Although there is only brief nudity, the passion between the 3 main characters do hold up to keep the audiences attention. Rachael Leigh Cook, who continues to not show any skin, keeps her two "male" friends in limbo with who she wants to love and who she will only like. With a number of fake and absent sex scenes, Tangled is more of a tease than a thriller. With the good acting and average storyline, the movie is only worth watching once.

While I found this suspense-thriller to be rather mediocre in many ways, I am glad to say this film did manage to keep my attention for its hour and a half or so duration.

'Tangled' was a film I had never heard of before, but rented it on the basis of a decent cast (especially Rachael Leigh Cook) and the fact there was nothing else interesting at the store which I had not seen already. It has a very low budget feel to it, as if this could really have been a made for TV movie. It's basically a fairly typical teen film; light plot, suspect acting in places, and just about entertaining enough. The film in the most part is told in flashbacks and concerns a three way relationship between friends Jenny (Cook), Alan (Rhys-Meyers) and David (Hatosy) as told by David. The film starts with Jenny and David as close friends boardering on lovers, but things take a very different and sinister turn when Alan comes on the scene. The film was very, very similar to the 1995 film 'Fear' starring Mark Wahlberg and Reese Witherspoon. In this movie Rhys-Meyers essentially plays Wahlberg's character, Cook plays Witherspoon's character, Estelle Warren plays Alyssa Milano's character and Hatosy plays a similar role to that of Witherspoon's father in Fear, though his character is more jealous than overprotective. This is a little better than 'Fear' though.

There were a number of things I liked about the film. The cinematography was nice, and also varied - both warm and vibrant early in the film and dark and cold when things take a downward turn. The way in which the events are told through flashbacks of different times and using varying amonts of colour, though not particularly original (Usual Suspects, Traffic), does at least make it intersting and a little different from the rest of its market. I also liked the fact that Rachael Leigh Cook for once plays a relitively sexy character, rather than her usual 'cute but slightly dorky' ones which have become her trademark (She's all That, All I Wanna Do, Antitrust, etc). There were a few scenes where the director tries to be a little deeper and metaphorical (e.g. kite scene, sitting on car scene, and the story about the brothers), but I felt these scenes suffered from lack of subtlety, especially the kite scene. Still, I liked the fact he tried them.

I do have a number of critisisms though. Firstly, the plot can be a little slow at times which may not be to everyones tastes. Secondly, while the acting in the most part was OK, there were a few times (e.g. Cook's 'shocked and surprised' face in the first 10 minutes) which left me and the guys I was watching it with chuckling. Also the 'twist' ending is very predictable, and we had the whole second half of the movie figured out within the first twenty minutes. Still, theres at least a sense of contentment when things come together on screen how you predicted them.

Overall this is a mixed bag and not bad for a 1st time directorial effort - a mediocre but interesting suspense thriller which is worth a watch if you see it on TV.

Rating: 6/10

At first, I thought this is a second class movie with horrible acting, scene, script and so on and so on. But, after I watched it, I realized that I judged it too early. It's not as bad as I thought, as the matter in fact, it's not bad at all. It's unexpectedly good.

The cross-cut scene, the premise of thriller and good cinematography are already there when you watched it for 15 minutes. The more you watch it, you just follow what will happen and it may surprise you as it's not like what you expect.

What makes me amazed more is that, after I knew this is the first movie of the director, the script writer and the story writer. For their first experience, yes ... it's amazingly great movies. I hope to see more of their movies in the future. I must congratulate them for this.

This movie was pretty horrible except for Cook. She is gorgeous, however, she cannot really act. But that's okay because as long as you get to look at her that's all that matters. This movie was stupid and made for stupid people. They even explain the whole movie at the very end when it didn't need to be explained. A five year old could have figured out the twists without the movie having the end tell you. The first 10 and last 10 minutes are the most ridiculous. Just skip this altogether.

I am a huge fan on Jonathan Rhys-Meyers and he is the reason why I was dying to see this movie. For the amount of money that it cost to buy the DVD, I wasn't too impressed with the movie. The only reason to watch it is b/c of the photography scene. OOOh la la!!