Review: The Princess & The Frog

8:53 am EST December 14th, 2009 | Movies | 9 Comments

This movie is not without flaws, but I think it’s great and I highly recommend it.

Negative

The biggest negative with The Princess & The Frog is almost a compliment to the filmmakers: It’s too short. This movie is jam packed with characters, and the running time is just not enough to give their motivations and back stories the space they deserve. One of the main villains makes a pretty sinister turn, but I don’t feel as if the movie gives you enough context for his evilness to have the weight it should.

There are also a smidge too many songs. While the songs are good and (as I’ve noted before) move the story along without saying STOP, WE ARE SINGING A SONG NOW, there may be one song too many here. Dialogue may have worked better in this instance.

Positive

This is one of the best looking movies Disney has ever done. The colors popped, the characters moved with the full dimensions of life – a squash and stretch tour de force. Particularly aesthetically pleasing was the sequence where fireflies illuminate the path through the bayou. Ditto for a sequence that paid homage to the black art of that period. God it looked good.

Easily my favorite element to The Princess & The Frog was the way they played within the boundaries of the Disney fairytale while also breaking the format. For instance, while Tiana is the central female role yearning for a change to her life (like Ariel, Mulan, Snow White, etc.) she isn’t doing so by waiting for her Prince Charming.

Nor is she an orphan or a runaway. In the world of Disney, this is a bigger accomplishment rather than a black princess, I believe. Tiana has a good relationship with her mother (voiced by Oprah) who neither banishes her nor is shot in the forest.

Even the Prince breaks format, neither being the dull knight in charming armor or the buffoon or mysterious stranger. Naveen doesn’t just appear in the third act to tighten up loose ends and give the movie its happy ending, and that’s a good thing.

If you’ve watched Ken Burns’ The War, or played Modern Warfare 2, Mass Effect, Halo and other video games you know Keith David‘s voice. I loved him as the very evil Dr. Facilier. Again, he wasn’t given ample time to make the case for his anger – then he would rightfully be up there with the Scars, Maleficent, etc.

The music that I did like (most of it) helped to set the table for this movie as easily the most quintessentially American of any Disney animated movie ever. From the lead’s entrepreneurship and stance against traditional gender roles, to the backdrop of New Orleans and jazz, to the various southern accents of the characters – this is an American production.

Finally

The Princess & The Frog is not the best Disney movie ever, but it is deserving of “classic” status for its overall fun and entertainment value. Personally I love it because it easily disproves the myth that hand-drawn animation can’t cut it in the modern era. As a fan of both forms of animation, Princess holds its own and surpasses some of the very mediocre CGI stuff we’ve seen (whoever created Space Monkeys needs to be drawn & quartered).

Topic: Animation, Disney

« The Left’s Sacred Cows
Harry Reid Getting Rolled Again »

9 Responses to “Review: The Princess & The Frog”

Matthew Hooper says:

December 14, 2009 at 9:17 am

Regarding your “too short” criticism: Bear in mind that it’s a kid’s movie at heart. You can’t go too much more than 90 minutes when your target audience includes a sizable chunk of 7-year olds. I’m taking my 5 year old daughter to in on Wednesday, and it’ll be her first movie in the movie theater. Looking forward to it SO MUCH.
MadDog says:

December 14, 2009 at 10:18 am

I believe this is the first Disney animation that has been wholly produced under the new regime introduced by John Lassiter after Disney bought Pixar, and is a revival of traditional 2D hand-drawn animation.
I’m a die-hard Pixar fan, but this is good to see.
Rheinhard says:

December 14, 2009 at 11:16 am

This sounds reassuring, and I am really looking forward to seeing it. I am getting sick to death of what is apparently the new Hollywood “requirement” for animation – not only that it be CGI, but that it now be in THREE-DEEE! I don’t have anything against CGI or even necessarily 3-D (though most of the time that latter seems more like a gimmick to me), but think it ought to be up to the artist to decide what medium is best to express his or her ideas, not some accountant or head-office suit.

I managed to catch what was apparently the very last screening of “The Fantastic Mr. Fox” at my local cinema last week. I dragged a few fellow anime fan friends who hadn’t been really enthused about it, but ended up liking it a lot. I don’t know off the top of my head how well that film did in the box office, but it had a lot of really nifty and unexpected touches and was more sophisticated in its characterization than the trailers would lead one to believe. I also hope that did well enough to encourage the suits to break out of the “animation==CGI” thinking.
Southern Quaker says:

December 14, 2009 at 1:43 pm

Looking forward to taking the girls, although I have a sneaking suspicion my 10-year old will say he is “too old” for Disney movies “about girls.”

I hope they handle the Southern accents well – if there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s a fake southern accent, rather along the lines of the average Brit’s opinion of Dick van Dyke’s cockney in Mary Poppins. I couldn’t even go see Wolverine due to Gambit’s “southern” (isn’t he supposed to be Cajun?) accent in the previews.
*shudder*
Rudy says:

December 14, 2009 at 6:24 pm

I didn’t realize Kieth David was lending his voice. That’s great news to me!
cj says:

December 14, 2009 at 7:42 pm

I loved the movie, and I will agree that there were too many songs, but I till loved it anyway.
SFC B says:

December 14, 2009 at 9:36 pm

…drawn & quartered…

Very Pun-y.
Felix Helix says:

December 15, 2009 at 12:50 am

Nor is she an orphan or a runaway. In the world of Disney, this is a bigger accomplishment rather than a black princess, I believe.

Don’t forget Belle, who was neither an orphan nor a runaway nor a princess (until the last five seconds, that is).
Oliver Willis says:

December 16, 2009 at 1:40 am

True, though Belle does spend most of the movie away from her dad.