The Princess and the Frog – Review

When Disney announced that they were  returning to cell animation, it felt like they were going to make a quaint homage to their classics of yesteryear. For the past decade, cell animation has been regulated to TV shows, and for the theatrical films, computer animation has been the medium of choice. To think, a whole generation of kids growing up on computer animated films. I imagine they would initially think that what we call traditional animation, 2-D cell animation, is some old relic that Disney dusted off for a second. That’s a shame, because it’s not that styles die, it’s that film makers forget how to use them properly. Leave it to Disney to show why they are the once and future kings of cell animation. The Princess and the Frog is not just a return to glory days for the studio, but a superb, borderline masterpiece.

It always comes down to storytelling. No matter the style or medium, if your story isn’t that interesting, then your film isn’t going to succeed. I think that’s what happened to Disney in the late 1990s, after delivering classic after classic with The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and Lion King, their films lost a little heart, and were just average stories without much hoopla to them. Don’t get me wrong, I think Brother Bear is a bit under appreciated, yet something like Atlantis felt too un-Disney for a lot of us. Then came Pixar. The whole game changed, because those last few cell animated films flopped, and Pixar’s use of computer animated films delivered at the box office, signaling an unfair death toll for cell animation. But it came down to stories. Pixar understood the formula of great storytelling, and those latter films did not.

The Princess and the Frog is a warm-hearted, play on the Disney Princess story archetype, as well as the classic story of a prince who became a frog. Tiana is a unique female character in the Disney universe, and I’m not saying that because of her race, the much talked about first Disney Princess that is African-American. I think it’s unfair to really comment on that. For one, anything mentioned about her race, or the fact that it has taken this long for Disney to have a character like her, is shortsightedness, and maybe a little bit ignorant. I don’t doubt a post-Obama world helped, but in the end, the simple mention of this feels outdated and besides the point. She is a smart, independent woman, who believes in hard work and the power of the self. While more progressive, than she should be, a woman in the ’20s, it’s a powerful statement, and a source of inspiration.

The constant play on the traditional Walt Disney formula for the so-called Princess films here in The Princess and the Frog makes the film feel smart and alive. The New Orleans, Depression Era setting has some flavor to formula, as well as housing some great secondary characters, a Disney trademark. But aspect of these films, seemingly now forgotten in our animated world of today, is the songs. Songs return, and they are electric, catchy, and wholesome. When I first visited New Orleans, the warmth of the people and their great food, felt like going to Grandma’s house for welcomed visit. The Princess and the Frog is a return to form, not in style or medium, but in terms of great Disney film making.

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