Movie 36: The Princess And The Frog

Tiana is a young girl who dreams of owning her own restaurant, a dream that she inherited from her now dead father. Her best friend wants to be a Princess and believes that wishes on stars can come true, though Tiana goes more for hard work. A Prince finally arrives for Charlotte, but unknown to her he’s broke. He falls for the tricks of the Shadow Man, a Voodoo practitioner, and is turned in to a frog. Tiana kisses him in the hopes of getting the rest of the money she needs to start her restaurant but instead of turning him human it makes her a frog. The two set off to try and get back to being human and foil the Shadow Man.

And that’s the broad strokes. Wow, just WOW!

I didn’t expect much of this to be honest. It’s Disney’s first return to hand drawn animation in a few years, and it has some Pixar folks behind it, but I’m not a big Disney guy. Good Disney yes, but much of it isn’t. This is fucking GREAT Disney.

The animation is lovely yes. It harkens back to the old days with classic character designs and the backgrounds are gorgeous. It looks very nostalgic, like this is a lost classic from some alternate universe that’s been dug up. That’s basically what I expected to get from it, looks pretty but generally meh story.

It’s not a meh story. For a start they thrown in lots of little visual gags, probably more than I spotted on a first watch. Tiana is a very positive role model, maybe needs to learn to relax a bit, but a big message of the movie is that you get rewarded for working hard. That might not always be true, but its still better than wishing.

The Prince himself is a bit spoiled, but he’s genuinely funny and charming. He’s a frog for most of the movie but that’s one damned charismatic and funny frog.

Disney movies steadily, to me anyway, started to hang themselves on the funny side characters. And there’s a good pair of them here. Louis, a trumpet playing gator who wants to be human, and Raymond (Ray to his friends) a Cajun bayou firefly with a couple of teeth, a dodgy bum light and who’s in love with Venus who he thinks is a firefly called Evangeline. The two of them are funny as hell, but also well rounded characters.

And Dr “Shadow Man” Facilier….well he’s a classic Disney villain. Out for himself, some scary magic powers and a bit of a nasty piece of work. Some of the stuff around him will scare little kids (he has shadow monster friends) just the right amount. His counter part, Mama Odie, is a quirky old blind woman who lives in a boat in a tree and she’s funny and wise. Like Yoda before he got all grumpy.

The songs by Randy Newman are damned catchy Jazz numbers for the most part, all well performed and toe tapping. So just what you want really.

I can’t recommend this one enough. A word of warning though. Well more than one word. If you’re a big girl like me then take some hankies with you as there’s a moment in this film that’s just tragic and heart breaking. Its something I wouldn’t expect from a Disney movie but its pays off nicely. There shouldn’t be a dry eye in the house, unless you’re a jaded heartless bastard. Which I can be too, but this makes you a kid again.

Stop reading and go fucking see it NOW! Then drag every kid you know to see it cause this should be there Jungle Book or Robin Hood.

Actually I just remembered that good Disney has the no punch pulling sad moments, it makes you laugh and cry then sigh. So I shouldn’t have been surprised at all…

Next up: The Secret of Kells