Disney goes back to the drawing board this month, with their first non-CGI animated release in six years.
Being a big fan of the ‘old school’ Disney hits that all kids of our generation were raised on, I have been looking forward to this film for a while. I knew they had been working hard on giving another classic fairy tale that good old Disney revision, and that every department had been pulling out all the stops to make The Princess and the Frog
All of the things we’ve come to expect from Disney films are there in spades. The animation and voice talent is first rate. The characters are bold, likable and memorable. The moral message is clearly spelt out and followed through. The ending is happy and the songs are sing-along-able to a fault.
What is great about this film is its classic Disney twist. Instead of the ‘Princess’ kissing the frog and him becoming human again, the girl gets turned into a frog by accident. They then have to journey through the swamps of New Orleans to find a way to become human again, making plenty of friends and enemies and learning something along the way, of course.
Little boys will love the hick lightning bug (and his subtle bodily function jokes), while little girls will just adore, of course, the ‘Princess’. The Prince is hot enough that those of us who are so inclined can add him to our list of “Animated Men We Would Crush on If They Came to Life” (next to Shang from ‘Mulan’ and the Beast when he turns human). The bad guy is creep-ily bad enough without being overly scary, and his sidekick is, as usual, fat and downtrodden. For the ‘tween’ crowd, there is a brilliant spoilt brat character and her pushed around rich ‘Daddykins’ to enjoy, while there is just enough innuendo to make it worth viewing as an adult as well.
I foresee success. I foresee merchandise. I foresee a ‘Bug Bayou’ ride at Disneyland. I forsee a crappy, straight to DVD sequel (or twelve…). In fact, Disney will do very well by this release.
So, where does it fail? Well, perhaps this is just me, and maybe this is because I was watching for the first time as an adult, but the characters were all a bit too ‘stock’; we’ve seen them in a thousand films before, and we’ll see them again. As far as villains, heroes and sidekicks go, none of the ones in this film will be joining my list of particular favourites. The big sad scene near the end – no spoilers, honest – didn’t make me cry (not like ‘Fox and the Hound’ anyways…) and, in fact, had me rolling with laughter at the cheesiness of it, which is probably not what the writers wanted. The romantic moments were cliché, and the ‘hate becoming understanding becoming love’ motif is one that’s been done to death, not just by Disney. But then, we knew going in that they end up together, so it was really just a case of filling time until they did. And sure enough, in the space of just a few short days, these two amphibians had decided that they just couldn’t live without each other! Aww, bless…
I also personally found the backdrop of 1920’s America (with all the subtle race and class issues that that implies) a tad dark for a kids’ film at times, thought they did do a wonderful job of glossing over those issues that weren’t important without removing them from the film entirely. What was worse was when the characters found themselves “Down the Bayou”, and a veritable parade of quasi offensive Southerners (with their accents, stupidity and inbreeding implications intact) crossed the screen. Negative Stereotype Police on line one!
I was going to bash them for their use of Voodoo, thinking it was perhaps a bit spooky for a kid’s film, until I remembered Ursula the sea witch from the ‘The Little Mermaid’, but the references to the Devil are perhaps that one step too far. But then kids probably won’t pick up on them. Maybe I’m over analysing – it is a Disney film after all!
And a good one at that. It probably won’t join the ‘Classics’ in my heart, but it deserves its place in the Disney canon far more than some of their previous releases. Definitely worth the price of a cinema ticket, and enjoy the traditional animation while it lasts, because the next one, ‘King of the Elves’, isn’t due out until 2012.
You can buy The Princess and the Frog here.
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