Image © Disney
“The Princess and the Frog” (2009), Walt Disney Animation Studios’ 49th animated motion picture. A fun, if uneven, American fairy tale set during the Jazz Age in New Orleans. It’s also a return to traditional hand-drawn, or 2D, animation for the studio after previous management had abandoned the art form in 2004. Our human heroine, Tiana (sublimely voiced by the beautiful and talented Anika Noni Rose), becomes a frog herself after kissing “a frog prince.” The two of them, along with Louis the trumpet playing alligator and Ray the love-sick firefly, have a big adventure in the Bayou and at Mardi Gras trying to right the wrongs done to them by the evil Dr. Facilier, a wonderfully bad villain in the great Disney tradition. While the film has top-notch visuals and music, it’s a bit lacking in the story department. Still, it’s great to see Disney doing hand-drawn animation again. “Dreams do come true in New Orleans.”
Stanford Clark 