Princess and the Frog

Princess and the Frog is the final film, of the 2000 to 2012 span of years for the Disney animated classics, that we will be visiting. It's one of the first hand-drawn films that Disney made since Home on the Range, and as usual was a princess film.

Firstly, the animation here is really great. The backgrounds are lush and in a few cases really beautiful to watch. The characters are all well animated and rather interesting design wise. On the side, there's one song in particular which really stood out visually, this being "Friends on the Other Side" and has some of the best visuals, in my opinion, in the whole film. The little voodoo dolls and spirits are great to watch in action, and have a nice colour scheme.

The story itself is something that I'm only going to comment on briefly. It revolves around Tiana, a hard working girl who is trying to open her own restaurant just like her father wanted to do. While working for her friend at a ball, she is abruptly turned into a frog by a visiting prince, who has been swindled by the villain. From here the two set out to try and get themselves turned back into humans, and learn a thing or two on the way about each other and about their own lives.

Tiana and Naveen play off of each other rather well in this film, Tiana being the hard working 'princess' who doesn't just wish on a star for things to come true, while Naveen is much more laid back and carefree. In a way they keep each other balanced as Tiana grounds Naveen from going too far to his extreme, while Naveen helps Tiana grow and loosen up. Dr. Facilier is by far one of the best villains for this time period at the very least. He has an awesome voice actor, a great song and has one of the creepiest death scenes thus far.

 As usual, for this decade, it's the sidekicks where things start to waver. For me, Louis the crocodile is one of the more annoying characters and he really hampers this film. Every scene where he comes blundering through often makes me cringe or just shake my head instead of laugh, which gives the impression that Disney was trying too hard with this character. On the other hand we also have Ray, a cajun firefly, who is a mixed bag. While I really don't care for his first song, or his design at all, he does have at least one good part in the film at the end. The final character I wanted to comment upon was Charlotte. While a lot of people might be turned off by the "Rich, spoiled girl" aspect, it's really fitting. She is the exact opposite of Tiana, and yet shows that they can still be friends. Despite being rich and from a different walk of life, she still cares for Tiana as we see in the ball scenes and is willing to help her friend in the end. This character easily could have been a lot more jealous of Tiana and Naveen, and yet wasn't. One could argue that this latter bit is because the story required it, but that's also a rather...meta reason?

All in all, Princess and the Frog earns a solid 4/5