Review of The Princess and the Frog (2009) by Mrmoviebuff — 13 Jul 2015

I liked this movie...but I didn't LOVE it as much as everybody else did...and I do have my own reasons.

Disney's 'The Princess and the Frog' follows the story of a young woman named Tiana, who, ever since she was a child, wanted to open her own restaurant after the legacy was left from her father (dead parents in a Disney film huh). While she tries to live her dream, a handsome prince named Naveen is attending Now Orleans but runs into Facilier, the main villain of the movie who performs voodoo and transforms Naveen into a frog.

To get rid of the curse, Naveen must kiss a princess, when he runs into Tiana, the ironic thing is, when she kisses him, she turns into a frog as well. Their journey and the movie takes place with them being frogs.

I assume the reason everybody loves this movie is because it is 2D animated, and yes, it does look wonderful, it has that "old-school" Disney feel to it. Plus, an introduction to an African-American princess is also reassuring. The only problem I have with this movie in terms of the fact that it is not on par with 'Beauty and the Beast' (1991) or 'The Lion King' (1994) is that the characters I thought were very thinly written. Tiana isn't that much fun, I know she is supposed to be a career-driven woman, but she isn't as plucky as previous princesses. Naveen also isn't much fun either, he delivers comedy, but isn't memorable.

The songs by Randy Newman are mostly misses too, I don't remember them being that good, his best song is "When she loved me" from 'Toy Story 2' (1999).

The film is directed by Ron Clements and John Musker, who gave us other Disney films such as; 'The Little Mermaid' (1989), 'Aladdin' (1992) and 'Hercules' (1997). These films, while classics, also had trouble with memorable characters.

'The Little Mermaid' had sing-a-long songs, whimsical side characters and beautiful animation, but Ariel's love interest, Eric, was a good-looking man, but there's not much else interesting about him.

'Aladdin' had Robin Williams as the Genie, delivering all the comedy, but the main couple Aladdin and Jasmine looked more like brother and sister, and there wasn't much development with their love.

Despite all of this, these two films are still great, every film has their few flaws.

'Hercules' I remember I didn't particularly like, I don't hate it, but the songs were great and James Woods was fantastic, but the movie didn't live up to my standards unfortunately.

Overall, I give 'The Princess and the Frog' a 6/10 for the stunning 2D animation and the racial diversity in the "Disney Princess" line-up. But the songs are disappointing and the film itself with the characters are thinly written. Even after this film, 'Tangled' (2010) and 'Frozen' (2013) were improvements, but not because they were animated in 3D, they had their own ways of being unforgettable Disney films.