The Princess and The Frog has achieved a certain, rightly deserved, sincere interest and film credibility by being Disney’s long awaited but not so easily foreseen return to hand drawn animation.
The Princess and The Frog takes place in a lushly envisioned Jazz-age New Orleans – complete with Randy Newman jazz and blues soundtrack and musical numbers. Tiana (Anika Noni Rose) is a hard working young lady with a gift for cooking – think gumbo and jambolaya – who dreams of making her money-poor love-rich family proud by making enough money to open her own restaurant – Tiana’s Place. Meanwhile, happy go lucky, never-worked-a-day-in-his-life and needless to say handsome Prince Naveen (Bruno Campos) arrives in town jamming with the locals and getting up to all sorts of hijinx much to the dismay of his jealous, puggish servant Lawrence. Soon enough, Naveen gets involved with a classic, and scary in all the right ways, Disney villain, Dr Facilier – the Shadowman – voiced by Keith David, loved over here for his early performance in The Thing back in 1982, but it appears he can turn his hand to many a different role. Facilier offers to use his voodoo powers – his friends on the other side – to help Naveen get his riches now he has been cut off financially by his parents. But of course these deals always have there catches and to cut a long story short he ends up turning into a frog at a hoity toity masquerade ball at which Tiana is making her speciality cuisine. In a very funny scene Naveen, in amphibious form, convinces a baffled Tiana to kiss him only to, in a new twist on an old story, turn her into a frog also. The rest of the film follows their journey to try and change themselves back to their human form as they venture across the bayous in search of magic and help and run from voodoo spirits and treachery with the aid of a few helpful anthropomorphic chums along the way.
The recent leaps and bounds of Disney Pixar’s computer generated animation – from box-office hits (Toy Story, Finding Nemo) to Oscar nominees (Wall.E, Up) – have made it seem to most that hand drawn animation is a thing of the past. Which anyone who’s seen a film by Hiyao Miyazaki knows is wrong. His films are fantastic examples of the warmth and beauty achieved in hand drawn animation – I am yet to see his latest offering Ponyo, an imaginative retelling of Disney’s The Little Mermaid. Ironically, though, it appears that it was John Lasseter – head of Pixar and the director of the Toy Story films, whose success single handedly convinced the bosses that CGI was the future – that helped get this film made. He has also been a international champion of Studio Ghibli’s work so he clearly understands that these two art forms can co-exist. Indeed, although computer animation has taken the limelight other animation has continued to excel; in Japanese animation and also stop motion animation such as Wallace and Gromit and the Curse of the Were-Rabbit and more recently Roald Dahl adaptation The Fantastic Mr Fox.
Disney’s last hand drawn animation, 6 years back, was the forgettable and indeed forgotten, Home On The Range, but Princess and The Frog feels much like a return to the form of Disney’s many golden ages. The film hits that heartfelt note of Disney magic and it does feel watching it as if they set out to make a classic here. Perhaps they really wanted to prove the merits and majesty of a hand drawn animated feature and this film appears to hit it on every level your classic Disney should. Great musical numbers, great characters, the supporting characters add much wonderment to the film in the shape of Louis an alligator who dreams of playing trumpet with New Orleans big bands and Ray, a Cajun firefly who, in a storyline that only Disney could make so emotional, is in love with a bright star in the night sky, Evangeline. The villain is great and I really enjoyed the genuine creepiness of his character and his spirit buddies, there’s got to be a bit of darkness and peril! The film also has a very well crafted clever and original storyline, based on a classic – how many Disney films become the definitive version of those old tales – I myself find Disney’s vulpine representation of Robin Hood to be the best there is. Hell, even Oliver and Company ain’t a bad rendition of the classic Dickens story. While were on the subject who’s idea was it to put Cheech Marin in a kids film?? Twisted genius.
Essentially the magic lies in a film that can put you in a world of pure imagination and still reach you emotionally, young or old and this film does that very well. Surprisingly, well. This film, as happy as I am to see this sort of movie being made again, has some explaining to do for nearly making me cry quite so often, but there you go, that’s the power of Disney – recaptured. The Princess and The Frog features Disney’s first black princess but the film is so embedded in Disney’s lustrous history it doesn’t seem unusual, it never really crossed my mind. Clearly there’s nothing wrong with doing things the old fashioned way and Disney have gone out to prove that, in what will no doubt be one of the classic Disney movies, up there with the legends of the 50s and 60s and the masterpieces of Disney Pixar, this century. It looks like I’ve giving the film a glowing review but don’t misjudge I’m not too soft to bad mouth a Disney film if necessary, this one just happens to hit the nail right on the head and if you ask me this is one of those rare things, a great family film, and a great family film is a film everyone can enjoy.
The Princess and The Frog takes place in a lushly envisioned Jazz-age New Orleans – complete with Randy Newman jazz and blues soundtrack and musical numbers. Tiana (Anika Noni Rose) is a hard working young lady with a gift for cooking – think gumbo and jambolaya – who dreams of making her money-poor love-rich family proud by making enough money to open her own restaurant – Tiana’s Place. Meanwhile, happy go lucky, never-worked-a-day-in-his-life and needless to say handsome Prince Naveen (Bruno Campos) arrives in town jamming with the locals and getting up to all sorts of hijinx much to the dismay of his jealous, puggish servant Lawrence. Soon enough, Naveen gets involved with a classic, and scary in all the right ways, Disney villain, Dr Facilier – the Shadowman – voiced by Keith David, loved over here for his early performance in The Thing back in 1982, but it appears he can turn his hand to many a different role. Facilier offers to use his voodoo powers – his friends on the other side – to help Naveen get his riches now he has been cut off financially by his parents. But of course these deals always have there catches and to cut a long story short he ends up turning into a frog at a hoity toity masquerade ball at which Tiana is making her speciality cuisine. In a very funny scene Naveen, in amphibious form, convinces a baffled Tiana to kiss him only to, in a new twist on an old story, turn her into a frog also. The rest of the film follows their journey to try and change themselves back to their human form as they venture across the bayous in search of magic and help and run from voodoo spirits and treachery with the aid of a few helpful anthropomorphic chums along the way.
The recent leaps and bounds of Disney Pixar’s computer generated animation – from box-office hits (Toy Story, Finding Nemo) to Oscar nominees (Wall.E, Up) – have made it seem to most that hand drawn animation is a thing of the past. Which anyone who’s seen a film by Hiyao Miyazaki knows is wrong. His films are fantastic examples of the warmth and beauty achieved in hand drawn animation – I am yet to see his latest offering Ponyo, an imaginative retelling of Disney’s The Little Mermaid. Ironically, though, it appears that it was John Lasseter – head of Pixar and the director of the Toy Story films, whose success single handedly convinced the bosses that CGI was the future – that helped get this film made. He has also been a international champion of Studio Ghibli’s work so he clearly understands that these two art forms can co-exist. Indeed, although computer animation has taken the limelight other animation has continued to excel; in Japanese animation and also stop motion animation such as Wallace and Gromit and the Curse of the Were-Rabbit and more recently Roald Dahl adaptation The Fantastic Mr Fox.
Disney’s last hand drawn animation, 6 years back, was the forgettable and indeed forgotten, Home On The Range, but Princess and The Frog feels much like a return to the form of Disney’s many golden ages. The film hits that heartfelt note of Disney magic and it does feel watching it as if they set out to make a classic here. Perhaps they really wanted to prove the merits and majesty of a hand drawn animated feature and this film appears to hit it on every level your classic Disney should. Great musical numbers, great characters, the supporting characters add much wonderment to the film in the shape of Louis an alligator who dreams of playing trumpet with New Orleans big bands and Ray, a Cajun firefly who, in a storyline that only Disney could make so emotional, is in love with a bright star in the night sky, Evangeline. The villain is great and I really enjoyed the genuine creepiness of his character and his spirit buddies, there’s got to be a bit of darkness and peril! The film also has a very well crafted clever and original storyline, based on a classic – how many Disney films become the definitive version of those old tales – I myself find Disney’s vulpine representation of Robin Hood to be the best there is. Hell, even Oliver and Company ain’t a bad rendition of the classic Dickens story. While were on the subject who’s idea was it to put Cheech Marin in a kids film?? Twisted genius.
Essentially the magic lies in a film that can put you in a world of pure imagination and still reach you emotionally, young or old and this film does that very well. Surprisingly, well. This film, as happy as I am to see this sort of movie being made again, has some explaining to do for nearly making me cry quite so often, but there you go, that’s the power of Disney – recaptured. The Princess and The Frog features Disney’s first black princess but the film is so embedded in Disney’s lustrous history it doesn’t seem unusual, it never really crossed my mind. Clearly there’s nothing wrong with doing things the old fashioned way and Disney have gone out to prove that, in what will no doubt be one of the classic Disney movies, up there with the legends of the 50s and 60s and the masterpieces of Disney Pixar, this century. It looks like I’ve giving the film a glowing review but don’t misjudge I’m not too soft to bad mouth a Disney film if necessary, this one just happens to hit the nail right on the head and if you ask me this is one of those rare things, a great family film, and a great family film is a film everyone can enjoy.
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