As Disney's return to hand drawn cartoon features following five years of trying (and largely failing) to carve out its own niche in computer animation beyond Pixar, The Princess and the Frog carries an almost unfair amount of baggage. That the film also has Disney's first black princess, after pretty much exhausting every other ethnicity and multiple species, means more pressure and closer scrutiny. How did Disney and the creators of The Princess and the Frog respond? By only slightly tweaking the successful princess recipe and avoiding any hint of possible controversy. The result can be familiar and sometimes bland - classical animation that doesn't quite make for a classic product. We've seen this before, repeatedly, but that doesn't mean it lacks appeal. In fact, the basic formula used here is so good that it almost seems shortsighted to cynically criticize Disney for making yet another cartoon iteration of its favorite story. When done well, and The Princess and the Frog is dazzlingly proficient, the Disney studio's pictures are cinematic comfort food.

Also in its favor is the film's ample use of New Orleans. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, no other American city can be considered quite as beloved as the Big Easy. Whether Disney is exploiting this goodwill by setting the movie there or if the intentions are more pure, the result is still that the city plays a vital role in creating a specific mood unlike any ever felt in the other princess movies. The urbanity of New Orleans remains only barely skimmed but the city's oft-celebrated mysticism indebted to voodoo and jazz, the bayou and fresh gumbo pours into scene after scene. The filmmakers reach a nice balance of making New Orleans a vibrant setting without turning it into a total caricature. As such, too, issues of race are more or less incidental, though not outright ignored given the disparate social standings of the two potential princesses.

We first meet young Tiana (voiced initially by Elizabeth Dampier and later by Anika Noni Rose) in a pre-opening titles prologue of sorts where she's playing with friend Charlotte as the former's mother sews pretty dresses for the little white girl. The year isn't identified but it must be sometime in the 1910s or 1920s. Charlotte's father (voiced, in little more than a cameo, by John Goodman) is a prominent and wealthy man in New Orleans who'll eventually be King of Mardi Gras five years running. Tiana and her parents (Terrence Howard and Oprah Winfrey) live in a much more modest part of town, though one that's apparently friendly enough to share extra gumbo with when the occasion arises. As Tiana transforms into a young woman, she maintains the same dream of owning her own restaurant she had as a child, and lives by her now-deceased father's instruction of working hard to achieve her goals. On the other side of the fence, the adult Charlotte doesn't seem to do much of anything beyond beg her father to find a prince she can marry.

When a prince does indeed come along, he seems much more suited for the idle life Charlotte's family wealth could afford. Prince Naveen (Bruno Campos) is a lazy, shiftless, and broke royal whose parents in the fictional country of Maldonia cut him off because, as he admits, he doesn't know how to do anything. A nefarious plot involving his manservant Lawrence (Peter Bartlett) and the shadowy voodoo practitioner Dr. Facilier (Keith David), who's by far the most captivating presence in the film, ends up turning both the prince and Tiana into frogs. Yep, the film's clever twist on the princess story is for the would-be princess to kiss a frog prince and, rather than happily ever after where he reverts to being handsome and human, she transforms into a frog. Ultimately, this works well as a variation on a theme that became tiresome long ago. It's maybe less successful in the dragging portion where Tiana and Naveen, as frogs, must navigate the bayou while making new friends (including a trumpet-playing alligator and a Cajun firefly) and slowly falling in love. The film settles into a very typical, if still effective, groove in this section, and the insistence on remaining so comfortable blunts the excitement of the more inventive sequences a little.


A wonderful Jazz Age interlude occurs earlier in The Princess and the Frog, altering the animation style to resemble the paintings of Harlem Renaissance artist Aaron Douglas and, at the very least, charming this viewer a great deal. It's a reminder that movies, animated or live action, can be the most interesting when peering beyond what's become expected of them, and that the basic narrative so often adhered to has plenty of room for detours and improvisation. Opportunities for breaking free from conventional plot structure in Hollywood animation are there time and again yet almost never explored. The plotless nature of so many children's television shows negates the argument that it's necessary to provide the young ones with an easily understood path from point A to B to C. Maybe it's intended for the parents.

Certainly Disney's recognizable themes of moral exactitude and the hi-ho mantra of hard work, fully in tact here, are as palatable for the older watchers as the younger ones. The Princess and the Frog repeats Tiana's insistence on achieving her dream of opening a restaurant by working hard, at two jobs, and saving her money. Examined closer, though, this message gets muddled, and it's here that race or, more accurately, class affects the film's thematic concerns. Tiana's ultimate achievement of her goal isn't accomplished through hard work so much as it is chance and the inherited status and wealth of Charlotte and Naveen. She is, despite several bumps in the road, rewarded for being in the right place at the right time. Indeed, had she merely continued to work two jobs tirelessly she would have actually lost the chance to open her restaurant. Additionally, the character of Charlotte, who's portrayed as shallow but ultimately good, exhibits virtually no work ethic and emerges just fine. On some level the film seems to be saying that the working class can eke out an honest living through strenuous employment but can't get ahead without a good deal of luck and the help of those more privileged. That's almost surely not the message it wants to convey but, even in an animated fantasy, working hard doesn't seem to really trump wishing on a star.

It's worth pointing out, especially in our modern age of being able to see movies again as often as time allows, that I found The Princess and the Frog to have a great deal of replay value. A second watch proved that the songs, while not necessarily making the largest of impacts at first, do hold up well. The decision to reprise Tiana's "Almost There" and Dr. Facilier's "Friends on the Other Side" actually adds some depth upon fully realizing the change in meaning. Ray's zydeco number is similarly enchanting when heard (and seen) again. It's a testament, too, to the richness of the animation and the extra care taken with the story that adults can appreciate the film on repeat viewings as much or even more as on the first time around. I mentioned earlier that this didn't have the feel of a truly classic Disney animated movie, but that might have been hasty. Given the period setting and the mixture of both classical and less obvious methods of storytelling - meandering to a predetermined goal - , time might very well be kind to The Princess and the Frog.

The Disc(s)

Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment has again packaged a new release in a manner that allows for viewing on multiple formats. In addition to a supplement-laden Blu-ray disc, there's also a DVD and a Digital Copy disc inside the case. The DVD, which is the source of the images used in this review, contains an audio commentary, deleted scenes, a music video and an interactive game as bonus material. A little booklet is included with advertisements for products as diverse as the upcoming Blu-ray releases of James and the Giant Peach and Beauty and the Beast, plus a boil-in-bag rice product and something called FrogTape.

The 1080p transfer is in the 1.78:1 aspect ratio and looks basically flawless. The richness and depth of the animation is rendered as well as any cartoon feature I've ever seen on Blu-ray. For all of the precision we so often get with the Pixar discs, there's a painterly warmth to hand drawn animation that makes for such an inviting visual experience. Whether it's the Bambi-like backgrounds in the bayou sequence or the psychedelic color palette used for Dr. Facilier's number, this is a wonderful watch.

A pretty grand listen, too. We get a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track that confidently lets the songs ebb and flow as needed without ever forcing the volume unnaturally high. The dialogue sounds clean and balanced in the mix. As good as the visuals are displayed on this disc, the audio experience is equally impressive. Dubs are available in Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks for French, Portuguese, and Spanish. Subtitles, white in color, are optional in those languages plus English for the hearing impaired. There's also a two-channel English Descriptive Video Service track.

If compared to the lavish Blu-ray releases Disney has given its big catalog titles and the Pixar output thus far available in high definition, this isn't up to such standards either in quantity or quality of the bonus material. Still, aside from far too much repetition from one supplement to the next, there's enough here to provide a good level of familiarity to the production. Most informative, though obviously lengthiest, is the commentary by directors Ron Clements and John Musker and producer Peter Del Vecho. It comes across as a very professional track, with plenty of details of various aspects of the filmmaking process. There's also an interesting story told about how the studio had instructed all of the drawing desks to be thrown out when it closed down that animation division. How a company like Disney, which often seems elbow deep in its own mythmaking, could so coldly abandon its history like that is astounding. Luckily, some of the desks had been hidden away so they got dusted off after John Lasseter cried out from the Magic Kingdom to let there again be hand drawn cartoons.

Another running complement to the film, a picture-in-picture track, can be accessed from the menu. This "Work in Progress" feature places a rectangle at the top left of the screen with black and white storyboards of what's going on in the film as it plays.

Four Deleted Scenes (11:43) are also made up of storyboards. Following an Intro (1:07) from directors Musker and Clements, one can watch "Advice from Mama" (1:35), an "Alternate Louis Introduction" (3:45), "Stop and Smell the Roses (3:20), and "Naveen Confides in Ray" (1:54) either individually or by using the Play All option. The directors provide short introductions to each of these abandoned ideas.

The Music & More section is actually just a music video (4:04) for "Never Knew I Needed" by Ne-Yo.

Bringing Life to Animation (8:08) explores the live action reference reels used by the animators while drawing. Musker and Clements again provide an Introduction (1:09) that's followed by individual examples, with the directors' commentary, of seeing dancers perform "Dig a Little Deeper" (4:38) and actors work through the scene for "The Proposal" (2:21) between Charlotte and Naveen/Lawrence.

The main making-of featurette, and really the only one that rises above feeling like a total promotional piece, is "Magic in the Bayou: The Making of a Princess" (22:11). Animators and cast members are heard from, and the expected hooks of having an African-American princess for the first time and the return to hand drawn cartooning feature prominently. A collection of little mini featurettes follow, all repeating things said elsewhere and seemingly designed to sell the film rather than foster appreciation for it.

"The Return to Hand Drawn Animation" (2:43) sort of glosses over why it was cut to begin with and also, like a lot of the talk around this picture, makes much of the return despite there only having been a five-year absence. "The Disney Legacy" (2:31) takes less than three minutes to tout the genius of some of the studio's most famous animators. "Disney's Newest Princess" (2:51) "introduces" us to the main character of the movie we've just seen. "The Princess and the Animator" (2:25) has Mark Henn talking briefly about his experiences drawing Tiana and the other princess-type characters he's animated like Belle, Jasmine and Ariel. "Conjuring the Villain" (1:50) just barely slides across putting Dr. Facilier on the screen, including interviews with animator Bruce W. Smith and voice actor Keith David. "A Return to the Animated Musical" (3:13) lives up to its title with a focus on the songs Randy Newman composed for the film.

One of the disc's most fascinating extras is surely the Art Galleries feature that show various designs and drawings. Of particular interest are the 19 pages (totaling 112 images) in the Visual Development section. All of the main and supporting players also have their own smallish gathering of drawings to see in Character Design, which totals 96 images. Another 17 images can be seen in Layouts & Backgrounds and 54 in Storyboard Art.

The interactive game What Do You See: Princess Portraits closes things out with Mama Odie explaining that the object of the activity is to pick which princess is being drawn by a group of fireflies.

Beyond that, there is BD-Live content and a host of Sneak Peeks that are highlighted by a teaser for the upcoming Fantasia and Fantasia 2000 Diamond Edition, as well as promises of new James and the Giant Peach and Beauty and the Beast releases.

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