Back to the Classics

The Princess and the Frog
(Ron Clements and John Musker, 2009)
4 Stars

It’s been a good few years now since Disney released a 2D animation, the last being the so-so Home on the Range, and almost twenty years since the renaissance that brought us such classics as The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King. It’s rather scary really to think that Ariel’s aquatic adventure was the first film I saw at the pictures (back when they still changed the reel half way through and you went into the lobby for your orange ice lolly). Makes one feel rather old at twenty three…

Growing up in Disney’s nineties hay-day has given me something of an adoration for the 2D features. As great as the Pixar outings are, they will never, in my eyes, surpass good old pen and paper.

And so, it has been with rapt anticipation that I have been waiting for the first release from Disney Animation Studios in six years; The Princess and the Frog. From the team behind Aladdin, The Little Mermaid and Hercules, and with music by Randy Newman, I had little doubt that this would be an instant classic. And oh, how I trembled with delight as the first musical number, “Down in New Orleans”, filled my ears.

Set in 1940s Louisiana, with a chorus of racial stereotypes that would make Walt himself proud, The Princess and the Frog could quite easily have been made by Disney himself; such is the overwhelming feel of fun and sheer delight oozing like froggy mucus from the screen.

The Princess and the Frog, based on E.D. Baker’s The Frog Princess tells of a young waitress (notably Disney’s first Afro-American “princess”) who dreams of running her own restaurant. Meanwhile, the despicable voodoo shaman Shadow Man (possibly Disney’s best villain since Ursula the Sea-Witch) curses a young prince, turning him into a frog. From there, we take on a new twist on the classic “kiss the frog” tale, set to some real toe-tapping Jazz numbers from the mind of Mr. Newman, and accompanied by some truly great characters; a trumpet-playing alligator, a blind old voodoo priestess, and, most notably, a hilarious Cajun firefly (voiced by Disney legend Jim Cummings – the voice of Winnie the Pooh, Darkwing Duck, et al…) who falls in love with a star.

The story, although perhaps somewhat hurried at the beginning (exactly why the Shadow Man curses Prince Naveen is not explained until much later in the story, so we are left a little disoriented to start; though perhaps this is the intention…), is intoxicatingly enthralling, and culminates in one of the most powerful endings I think I’ve ever seen in a Disney animated feature. Indeed, I did find myself welling up; something only one other Disney has caused me to do (The Fox and the Hound). The inevitable fate of the Shadow Man is also quite terrifying. I shan’t give anything away, but be sure to be ready to comfort those of a weaker disposition.

The animation is, naturally, flawless, incorporating elements of both classic Disney style and art Deco in order to bring to Technicolor life the warmth and spice of Old N’awlins. Newman shies away from his usual Toy Story tweeness to create an audio world of Jazz, Gospel and, naturally, the mandatory Disney “Some Day My Prince Will Come” style ballad, proving that he is not a one trick piano-based pony.

Fans of the old classics, and indeed the nineties revival, will not be let down by any means. In The Princess and the Frog, Disney have managed to bring us back to the golden age of animation in a new and wonderful setting, keeping the magic and yet thrusting it forward into the new decade. I have big hopes for the next few ventures, The King of the Elves and The Snow Queen, and having had the pleasure of The Princess and the Frog, I’m one thousand percent certain this is just the beginning of a whole new world for Disney Animation Studios.