LOS ANGELES - As Princess Rapunzel races through the mystical forests of “Tangled,” swimming rivers and clambering through secret tunnels, she has to work overtime to keep pace with her boyfriend, a rapscallion named Flynn Ryder.

She’s daring, this teenage princess, but all that hair is an awful lot for one little animated head to carry. The real-life weight sitting on top of “Tangled,” by Walt Disney Animation Studios, is equally daunting. As the 50th animated movie created by the studio that invented the medium ? but has lately had a -hard time finding its voice ? “Tangled” must answer an ethereal but important question: Exactly what is Disney’s animated identity these days? Disney animated movies used to mean something very specific.

They were painterly fantasies, often centered on a young hero in generational conflict, that dripped with sophisticated visuals ? think about the square edges in “Sleeping Beauty” or the swirling ballroom scene in “Beauty and the Beast.” The music was impossibly catchy. (Try to shake “Bibbidi-Bobbidi- Boo” from “Cinderella.”) Scenestealing female villains (Cruella de Vil, Ursula the Sea Witch) mixed with distinct, unexpected caregivers (the dwarfs, Rafiki from “The Lion King”) amid the songs, life lessons and comic business.

But the studio clung too long to the formulas that had worked before ? particularly hand-drawn animation ? and suddenly a dull parade of releases (“Treasure Planet,” “Brother Bear,” “Home on the Range,” “Chicken Little,” “Meet the Robinsons”) sent audiences running for the dazzling new digital imagery pioneered by Pixar and DreamWorks Animation.

People came to know that a Pixar film meant grown-up cinematic touches (nimble tracking shots, subtle changes in the texture of light), unconventional plots ? a scream-processing factory, an old man on a balloon flight ? and swiftly edited chase sequences, usually in the final act.

DreamWorks Animation excelled at snarky, sequel-seeking romps brimming with pop culture references and vocal performances from big-name stars. A Disney animated movie? More often than not, that stood for rudderless mediocrity. “There has been no single guiding sensibility, and that is an enormous problem with this kind of cinematic endeavor,” said Neal Gabler, author of “Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination.”

“To make art you need a sensibility.” “Tangled,” opening this fall and winter worldwide, could mark a turning point. For the first time since John Lasseter and Ed Catmull of Pixar were put in charge of Walt Disney Animation Studios, a duty that came with Disney’s $7.4 billion purchase of Pixar in 2006, the pair have had enough time with “Tangled” to pull off a masterpiece. Mr. Lasseter has spent over three years working on the film ? as much time as he has spent on Pixar hits over the years.

“I think we’re there,” Mr. Lasseter said of a creative turnaround at Disney. “This film is as good as a Pixar film, but it’s classic Disney, and I love that: heart, humor, beauty, music, wonderment, the love story. Some people believe audiences today have grown past what is classic Disney storytelling, that they have become too cynical for it.

I will never believe that.” Audiences expecting a solemn retelling of the classic Rapunzel tale will be disappointed. The core of the fairy tale is all there ? “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair” ? but the story has been greatly expanded. Rapunzel herself has a flow and grace ?

what old-time Disney artists call “the golden poses” ? that is not typical of computer animation, which has a hard time with curves, but is a hallmark of the Disney princesses. (To achieve this look Disney developed a tool to allow artists to draw on a computerized screen with a stylus. ) But “Tangled” is also a departure. There are modern story elements, never-before-seen technological advances and lots of Lasseter’s touches. The directors said the horse chases are meant to feel like the speeding-car sequences from the “Bourne” movies.

The princess, voiced by the singer Mandy Moore, is tough: she smacks Flynn with a frying pan when he climbs into her tower and uses her hair like a whip. Making the leading man an unlikable thief is a subtle yet startling twist for Disney, and Flynn (voiced by Zachary Levi, the star of the television series “Chuck”) is glib in a way that many people now associate with DreamWorks.

“We want to make a Disney film for today’s audiences, but we don’t just want to copy the past,” Mr. Lasseter said. “We want to copy the essence.”


BROOKS BARNES/ESSAY