Disney has always set the standard for animation – so “The Princess and the Frog” arrives not just as a new animated feature, but as part of a lengthy heritage that goes all the way back to “Snow White.”
Still, this is Disney’s first hand-drawn musical in five years, after the unmemorable “Home on the Range.” Will an old-school animated film beguile digital-age tots?
How could it not? “Princess/Frog” has a headlong story, to go with its brilliantly imaginative and fanciful visuals. And it offers a bright, upbeat score by Randy Newman, who covers a lot of ground while maintaining a feel for New Orleans’ many musical sounds.
Yes, New Orleans: This version of the Brothers’ Grimm’s fairy tale has been modernized to the 20th century – to Jazz-Age Big Easy. It’s still a classical narrative about a hero’s sacrifice for a greater good – and, in fairy tales, good deeds always seem to be rewarded. But Tiana (Anika Noni Rose), Disney’s first African-American heroine, isn’t really a princess, at least not at the start.
Instead, she’s a waitress who harbors a dream given to her by her late father: to own a restaurant and cook her own kind of food. She still lives with her mother and saves her money regularly.
Tiana’s best friend, a white debutante named Charlotte (Jennifer Cody), is to be presented to Naveen, a visiting prince with a Hispanic accent (Bruno Campos). Charlotte (and her father, voiced by John Goodman) both harbor fantasies of her marrying a handsome prince. But the local voodoo doctor, Facilier (Keith David), also known as the Shadow Man, gets his hooks into Naveen, transforming him into a frog. When the newly amphibian Naveen mistakes Tiana for a princess and convinces her to kiss him, she turns into a frog, too.
The story becomes a race against time, as Naveen and Tiana must plunge into the swamp (and its lore) in their effort to regain human form. They team up with a jazz-playing alligator named Louis and a spacey Cajun lightning bug named Ray to seek out the ju-ju woman, Madame Odie (Jenifer Lewis).
There’s an elaborate subplot about the Shadow Man, turning Naveen’s paunchy servant Lawrence (Peter Bartlett) into a double for Naveen in hopes of using him to get at Charlotte and her fortune. But the real action is in the swamp, with frogs – or bait, as it were – trying to stay alive long enough to become human again, before they wind up the entree on another animals’ menu.
The obvious touchstones here are Disney efforts like “The Little Mermaid,” “Beauty and the Beast” and “Aladdin,” part of Disney’s second golden-age. They were all films with high-gloss casts and strongly comic scripts to complement the Alan Menken scores.
