I haven’t liked very many of the new computer animated features, but this one is pretty good. I look for the following criteria for computer generated animation:
hair/fur quality/flow
gravity realism
lip sync
escape
Obviously, since this movie was all about hair, it seems they took extra care in getting it right. The way it flows with the wind and character movements, the way it randomly falls, and the sheen is fantastic! So for hair alone, this one is the best I have ever seen.
The gravity and actor movements are excellent. Very realistic! They must have had real actors staging the movements in this. The “mother” reminds me of Edina from Absolutely fabulous. Disney is known for the large eyes on their characters and these characters have HUGE eyes. Taking up almost half of their faces.
The lip sync and mouth movements are right on, with very believable staging.
When you combine all of these with perfection, you get the “escape”. That’s when you can stop seeing it as computer generated and see it as almost real.
The story is very interesting with the hair being magical and keeping the “mother” young. The chameleon is cute, but not overly disney cute. The songs are forgettable, though. They need to go back to old disney style before broadway, before Alladin, etc. The thug song sounded like “old disney”. I think Disney now does everything with translating it to a broadway show in mind.
The scene when she first leaves the castle is very funny!
I loved the mime as well!