To me, this movie is perfection.

Awesome Movie

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

The Princess and the Frog is a refreshing return to classic animation for Disney. This movie adds a unique flavor to a popular fairy tale. It may be a little too intense for small children, though. Also, the musical numbers were fun, but not that memorable. I wouldn't put this up with the Disney "classics," but it's definitely an entertaining family movie.

Movie Review: "The Princess And The Frog" (2009)After being behind expectations with distribution of "Treasure Planet" in holiday season 2002/2003 with a visually overly-done twist on the classic tale by Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) "Treasure Island", while Pixar features as "Monsters Inc." (2001), "Finding Nemo" (2003) and "The Incredibles" (2004) take over the animated feature world of pleasure-seeking audiences domestically as internationally; Disney Animation Studios under CEO Bob A. Iger decided to solve the problem by incorporating the whole company of Pixar Animation in 2006 into Disney Enterprises.Nevertheless the bold business move in order to secure Disney's frontrunning position in any field of motion picture animation brings a classical branch to an end with this last fulfilling handly-drawn, traditional-looking, highly atmospheric animated adventurous tragic-comic movie, including the obligatory dancing and singing acts set in early 20th century New Orleans, Louisiana, with another daring twist on a classic fairy tale; this time an high-concept interpretation of "The Frog Prince" from the Brother Grimm's collection of tales conceived in the Mid-of-1850s somewhere in Germany; then bodly translated in a painstaking process over five years with a full-developing production period, spreading from 2004 to 2009 by the never-giving-in writing, directing duo of Ron Clements & John Musker, who are also responsible for the action-adventure-comedies "Aladdin" (1992) and more recently with the highly accomplished digital animation feature "Moana" (2016)."The Princess And The Frog" streams passion from every frame, loving its artform matter of traditional analog animation, which even in the best sense under a tightly-calculated budget of just 105 Million U.S. Dollars over 140 Million U.S. Dollars for "Treasure Planet" (2002) seven years earlier, while digital competitors, usually with a shorter production time-frame completing their schedule from shooting draft to the final release in less then three years, here receive actually close-to a doubled-budget as Pixar's "Up" released in summer time of the same year of 2009, before a year later Disney's "Tangled" (2010) pushed the budget-ladder to never-reached again heights of a 260 Million U.S. Dollars production expenses for a single animated feature.In case of "The Princess And The Frog", the meticulous dedication as to say passion for all-time Walt Disney classics as "Pinocchio" (1940) or "Bambi" (1942) emotionally out-going from the entire production team gets evidence in a classic-Hollywood-paced editorial by Jeff Draheim between a singing, dancing and acting the way through life main character, here with another daydreaming, yet hardworking afro-american waitress Tiana, longing for a restaurant of her own. She meets the Frog eventually on a Southern-fashionable stylish ball in tinted into earthy-colors of symmetry and great add-on digital shading effects before embarking of the adventure of a life-time into the swamps of Louisiana, meeting scary as lovable creatures of the night as show-stealing trumpet-playing Crocodile Louis, animated in the most accomplished manner since crocodiles chasing hippos in Walt Disney's "Fantasia" (1940), here portrayed with a convincing voice by vocal artist Michael-Leon Wooley.Together they confront the grey-area-indulging character of Dr. Facilier, in looks and mimical gestures too close to the character of Jafar from "Aladdin" (1992) to be fully orginally, but nevertheless actor Keith David presents himself in joyful vocal-performing moods to live up to the task in constant-transforming production design interiors of the picture-defining musical act "Friends from the Other Side" with music created by long-time Disney-as-Pixar-movies-enchanting composer Randy Newman, who righteously earned two Oscar Nominations for Original Song, especially for accompanying the visually most-striking scene by re-utilizing special layering effects in golden 1920s art-déco styles, homaging early motion picture history of silent era, while the character of Tiana sings the utmost of charms and happiness-spreading main title of "Almost There".© 2018 Felix Alexander Dausend (Cinemajesty Entertainments LLC)

I was thankful and and delighted when I saw that Disney finally had decided to go back to their roots of traditional hand-drawn animation after a couple of CGI efforts ranging from garbage to mediocre. Because this is what I see as Disney. I have a distinct preference for traditional animation, not that Disney later made brilliant movies in CGI, but I have always told myself that CGI was Pixar's territory. The Princess and the Frog goes back to the fairy-tale, the musical, the animation, everything is really well done and most certainly Disney. I had a blast watching it. The romance is the most real since Beauty And The Beast if you ask me. Tiana and Prince Naveen take their time developing their relationship which brings us the awkwardness of being in love, dealing with each other's flaws etc. That is great! Tiana is also the most progressive female lead in the Disney Princess catalog since Belle. The first African American princess with sky- high ambitions and hard work to back make her dreams come true! Great! I also liked the supporting characters. Charlotte was hilarious! Some may say annoying, but I found her really funny and a great contrast to Tiana. Dr. Facilier was a well made mystical voodoo man with the greatest villain song since Hunchback! That song is the easily Randy Newman's greatest creation. All characters are voiced beautifully. Ray (Jim Cummings) and Dr. Facilier (Keith David) are my favorites. After all this praise, which I think the movie deserves, I must add the general consensus about one central flaw in it. The story too complicated to be a true classic all the way through. I love the colourful animation, the characters, the music, the message and I can accept the complicated story, but that one thing keeps it away from a 10. But watch it! It has some incredible scenes that will make your jaw drop.

This was one of the Disney films I meant to see during the BFI's all-year Disney-a-week marathon, but managed to miss out on (my enthusiasm had rather flagged by the end of the year). I watched it today under less-than-ideal conditions, on a salvaged second-hand DVD that jammed and skipped, and without actually being able to concentrate on the screen for considerable periods of time, and I liked it a lot: more than "Tangled", more than "Frozen". Loved the Twenties aesthetic (little references like Naveen's ukulele), Tiana's realistic working-class parents, the New Orleans setting, the jazz, the voodoo (the Shadow Man has definite overtones of Baron Samedi). I liked the way that Charlotte, though clearly spoilt rotten, turns out to be a good friend and not an antagonist (and they even manage to make the friendship between the Sugar King's daughter and Tiana the black waitress come across as plausible). The Shadow Man makes an excellent villain. And, although this sounds cruel, I liked the fact that they went so far as to really kill off Ray, instead of pulling off the last-minute magical resurrection that seemed to be on the cards -- though any last words at all were a bit implausible under the circumstances!I have a bit of trouble swallowing the idea of talking animals in New Orleans in the 1920s -- mainly the idea that the alligator can actually talk to ordinary people as well as to enchanted ones -- although that's a weird sticking-point given that I had no trouble with the idea that frogs can talk to alligators and fireflies... My main beef with the film would be that Naveen didn't really work for me as a character and I couldn't see what someone like Tiana would see in him; Flynn Rider as a similar 'reformed rogue' was much more interesting from that point of view. Having watched the DVD extras I now gather that he was supposed to be a complement to Tiana's character in that he can appreciate the things of the moment while she is so focused on the future that she misses out on beauty and reality that she's in the middle of -- and that at least one of the jammed/skipped sections was one that apparently made this point :-( However, when I saw the film he came across as rather flat. (And why the French-sounding accent, when he's the one character in New Orleans with no reason to sound French?)I wasn't especially fond of the songs as tunes -- nothing like as memorable as the numbers from "Beauty and the Beast" or "The Corpse Bride" -- but they work well as spectacle with the accompanying animations. "Friends on the Other Side" reminds me a bit of "Remains of the Day" in that respect, which is perhaps unsurprising! The film scores highly for me in that it repeatedly took completely unpredictable twists: I couldn't see the plot points coming, and yet they generally made perfect sense in retrospect. This is one picture where 'spoilers' are definitely best avoided, and somehow I'd managed to miss hearing any of them in advance :-)High on the visuals (sorry, but I'm really not that sold on 3D animation), high on the plot, very high on the background and setting. Naveen drags it down a bit, I'm afraid, as I couldn't really get invested in the romance, but overall 8/10. It would bear watching again under better circumstances; I'd have been tempted to hang onto the DVD if it hadn't been damaged!