The Princess and the Frog

Rating

Director

Ron Clements, John Musker

Screenplay

Rom Clements, John Musker, Rob Edwards, Don Hall, Greg Erb, Jason Oremland

Length

97 min.

Starring

Anika Noni Rose, Bruno Campos, Keith David, Michael-Leon Wooley, Jennifer Cody, Jim Cummings, Peter Bartlett, Jenifer Lewis, Oprah Winfrey, Terrence Howard, John Goodman

MPAA Rating

G

Review

Every generation or so, Walt Disney studios produces a half dozen or so great films, followed by a half dozen not-so-great and just-plain-terrible features. Disney may very well have begun a new period of success as The Princess and the Frog evokes the elements that made Disney one of the world’s greatest animation studios.

Telling the story of The Frog Prince from a new angle, Disney does a lot of things right with their latest hand-drawn feature, their first since the udder disappointment Home on the Range five years ago. It was that dud that led to the company shuttering their traditional animation department and begin courting the studio they distributed for Pixar.

When they finally convinced John Lasseter and company to merge under the Disney umbrella, though maintaining its brand, one of the conditions was that Lasseter be allowed to revive the hand-drawn division and attempt to return it to its former glory.

The Princess and the Frog is their first effort and although it reminds me a great deal of the sometimes too-simplistic story elements of The Little Mermaid, there is no denying that Disney may very well be back.

Anika Noni Rose provides the voice of Tiana, a poor black waitress hoping to fulfill her lifelong dream of opening a restaurant, making her late father proud in the process. While attending a fancy ball to celebrate the engagement of her childhood friend Charlotte (Jennifer Cody), she becomes entangled in a sinister plot by a voodoo witch doctor hell bent on bringing the world of the dead to the realm of the living.

That evening, she attempts to transform a talking frog back into a handsome prince, or so he says, and in the process becomes a frog herself. They then begin a journey across the bayou meeting strange characters and hazards in an effort to find a way to return themselves to human form.

Randy Newman’s score isn’t his best, nor is it his worst. It isn’t as grand as the Alan Menken/Howard Ashman efforts of the early 1990s, but songs like “Almost There” and “My Belle Evangeline” are enjoyable songs, and when accompanied with the right visuals, such as the stunning animation in the “Almost There” sequence, they work wonders for the film.

The plot is familiar to those who have watched any number of Disney fairy tales, but that familiarity only enhances the film’s entertainment value. You have your zany comic relief, your at-odds romantic entanglements, your glorious showstopping musical numbers and your simple, yet beautiful theme of accepting yourself for who you are not, what others want you to be.

To touch again upon The Little Mermaid connection, that film preceded the Disney masterpiece Beauty and the Beast, likely making that film possible. So, the fact that Mermaid and Princess and the Frog are so similar relatively, both being wonderful films with minor problems, it’s not hard to believe that we may be on the brink of a new Disney resurgence.

Everything works so wonderfully together that you can’t help but tap your toes, cry and smile when you’re supposed to. It reminds you all over again what it felt like to be a kid watching Disney animated movies. The Princess and the Frog may not be perfect, but it gives one hope that one of the great animation studios may finally be back on point, in form and on target.

Review Written

March 15, 2010