Movie Review: The Princess and the Frog

By FOX43tv.com's Film Reviewer, Stephanie Cooke

Watch the trailer!

The Princess and the Frog heralds Walt Disney Pictures' return to hand-drawn, 2D animation which means easy, watchable, classic animation.  Sans Pixar, Disney has managed to make a film with great storytelling, rich in culture, if occasionally sterotypical, and oh yeah, you might have heard, it's first African American Princess.

The Princess and the Frog is somewhat based on The Frog Princess , a book by ED Baker, which was inspired by the Grimm Brothers tale of The Frog Prince .  Directed by John Musker and Ron Clements, directors of The Little Mermaid , Aladdin and other favorites, the film is set in World War I New Orleans.  Tiana (voiced by Anika Noni Rose) is the daughter of Eudora (voiced by Oprah Winfrey) - a seamstress who works for the very wealthy Big Daddy (voiced by John Goodman) and his spoiled daughter Charlotte (voiced by Jennifer Cody).

Tiana and Charlotte play together as children, dreaming of marrying princes and becoming princesses, as Eudora makes princess dresses for Charlotte. (Look carefully in the background for Snow White's dress and Cinderella's dress).  On their own side of town, Tiana's father (voiced by Terrence Howard) has a dream of opening his own restaurant, but he goes off to war and doesn't return.  So Tiana picks up his dream as she grows up, saving and saving, hoping to one day open that restaurant her father always wanted them to have.

A jazz-loving visiting Prince Naveen (voiced by Bruno Campos) becomes the object of Charlotte's affection and the target of the Shadow Man (voiced by Keith David).  A little voodoo spell later, and Prince Naveen is a frog in search of a princess to kiss, so that he can become human again.  Seeing Tiana (dressed as a princess for a costume ball) he convinces her to kiss him, only instead of him becoming human, she becomes a frog as well.

The bulk of the movie is spent as the frog Prince Naveen and the frog Tiana try to find a way out of their froggy situation.  Along the way they meet some of the best characters in the movie:  Ray - (voiced by Jim Cummings) a Bayou Creole-speaking firefly in madly in love with the North Star he has named Evangeline; Louis - (voiced by Michael-Leon Wooley) a swamp alligator longing to be a jazz musician; and Mama Odie - (voiced by Jenifer Lewis) the good voodoo priestess of the swamp.  Along the way, Prince Naveen falls in love with Tiana and the Shadow Man returns for more voodoo magic.

Ultimately, it is the story of a Disney Princess, so you have to know how it ends.  Suffice it to say friendship and love prevail and dreams come true, if you believe.  I loved the animation and really appreciated that I didn't have to put on 3D glasses for this one.  So many animated movies lately have been fast-paced, action-packed, flurries of animated stuff floating or flying at or around the audience.  I hesitate to say that this movie is lazy, but kinda, but in a good way.  It rolls along at an easy pace, while letting the storytelling speak for itself.

The Princess and the Frog is a classic, for sure, though not on the level of The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast.  The story is there, but it didn't quite pull the emotional weight of the others.  I did like the plot and the characters and the animation, but none as much as I liked the score and soundtrack.  Randy Newman, well-known for his work on Pixar films, was tapped instead of Disney mainstay Alan Menkin.  Three songs in, I said to myself I have to buy this soundtrack!   "Almost There", "Dig a Little Deeper", and "When We're Human" all seem destined to be sung well into the future. 

Thankfully the film doesn't hit audiences over the head with the African American Princess story (unlike much of the media covering its release).  It is what it is, and I enjoyed it.  It could have done a bit more with race, but, then again, it could have bordered on heavy-handed if it had.  As it is we understand that Tiana is poor and Charlotte is rich, but that doesn't keep them from being friends, even as they get older.  And the princess is already sticking with its audience - of all colors.  I heard my first "I want a Princess Tiana" meltdown from a little blonde cutie in the toy aisle of my Chesapeake Wal Mart just last night.