Review of Disney's "Princess and the Frog"

While I am going to use this blog to mainly focus on my own experiences in my latest animation project(s), I am also going to use this to occasionally review animated films.  These are professionally animated movies which (god-willing) will not be "weakly animated", but should provide to be a great source of inspiration to animators and artists.  While new movies will always make it on my list, I may chose to review or comment on an older movie that sparked my interest or really excited me.  This will include both 2D and 3D movies, both fully animated and partially animated.  Expect to see the occasional review of such films as Wall-E, Avatar, and even anime like Ghost in the Shell.  (That isn't to say I might not throw in a true weakly animated review every so often, just to warn others).
So for this first review, I will briefly go over my view of Disney's The Princess and the Frog.  My wife and I saw this on the opening weekend, looking forward to this as a new beginning for Disney.  For us, the Disney movies started to run downhill before their Home on the Range movie, and their 3D films have just been embarrassing.  So when Pixar and John Lasseter "took over" Disney (by that, we merely mean that the team behind the Pixar hits are now involved with and directing the Disney Animation Studios), we were excited to see what they would come out with.  We were pleasantly surprised with Meet the Robinsons, and Bolt was a great movie.  This, being Lasseter's first full-length 2D film, and the first 2D film from Disney since their Home on the Range film in 2004, promises to be a new beginning for Disney and their re-emergence in both the Classic Disney story-telling and traditional 2D animation.

The Princess and the Frog really brought back the classic style and feel of the original Disney animated fairytales.  We both enjoyed this film, although we did have some criticism for it.  While I feel this is a huge leap in the right direction for Disney, I don't think this is as much of a leap they could have made.  In regards to the few concerns people had about racism in this film, I did not really see any evidence of it.  There is one scene where 2 men (dressed in a donkey costume, if that tells you anything) say something along the lines of "a girl with your background".  At first this sounded slightly racist to me, but I think it is intended to be a class issue, someone who is lower class versus someone who is higher class.  Beyond that, I think they handled race well by simply not making it an issue.
The story itself was a very good twist on the original fairytale.  While I do not want to give anything away (I really hate it when things get spoiled for me, so I try to not spoil things for others), I will say that this plays on the princess and the magic kiss theme.  It is clearly a family movie...

I must explain more clearly what I mean by a "family movie".  In my opinion, outside of the rating system (G, PG, PG-13, R, NC-17, NR), films have a target audience that they try to appeal to.  This does not actually have to do with the rating they receive, although they have to make sure the rating is compatible with their target audience.  I have split the target audience into separate catagories.
Children: These are movies intended for children, with little to no entertainment value for adults and teens.
Family:  These are intended for the entire family demographic.  That means children, parent,s brothers, sisters, young, old.  While it tries to have something for everyone, it is often mistaken for a children's movie because it is not specifically targeted toward adults or teens.
Teens/Action: Action blockbuster, aka a Guy's Flick.  Usually full of special effects and action with some adult content, mostly defined by its violence.  Adults love these as much as teens sometimes.
Teens/Romance:  The typical "Chick Flick", and other similar movies.  These are the date movies, romance comedies, vampire love stories, and so on with little to no violence and special effects.  Both adults and males watch and enjoy these as much as teens and women.
Adults:  These films are adult films, movies meant for people who can handle adult things.  Not specifically meant for titillation and the like, these films are more adult in their structure and presentation.  Movies like Watchmen fit here despite the heavy effects and graphics, but at the same time, movies like Nixon/Frost are also listed here.  Both deal with adult issues, and contain adult situations.  That is not to say teens don't want to or do see these movies, but the target audience is not the teenager.
Educational:  These are documentaries and educational films, usually suited for the full audience range, but often targeted at a specific demographic.  They have their own listing because they are not usually associated with big blockbuster films.  Several blockbuster films will also be educational but not fit into this category, because the target demographic is not the same.
"Specialty":  This is what I call the adult X rated movies.  They are intended for the pure adult audience interested in titillation and related adult material.  I will not be rating any movies under this category, animated for not, since they are of no interest to this project or the development of animation.

As I was saying before, this is a family movie, with a lot to offer the adults and teens, as well as the children.  In fact, I would say many family movies like this one have more to offer the adults and teens than the children, who often miss the deeper layers of the film.  (That is not to say this movie is as complicated as an adult love story, but it does have more than enough to offer the older audience).  The one caveat I have is that this story seems a tad too short.  An extra 20 minutes would have done wonders for this movie for both the story, and the character development.
As far as the characters are concerned, while the original trailers had me concerned over the animal characters, I am glad to say they are not as annoying as I thought they would be, they are even downright enjoyable.  There is plenty of character development, although at times I think it is a little too sudden and needed more time to flesh out some of the character-changing events a little more.  Regardless, I was quite happy with the way the characters turned out and the way they developed with the story.  My favorite character would have to be the villain, although Tiana's over-hyper rich friend is a close second.  The villain, a voodoo witch-doctor, has an interesting and fun style and his magic was very unique and was intense at times.
Finally, lets talk tech.  Technically, I was very pleased with the quality of this movie.  I recognized that many scenes used 3D modeling, and yet was glad to see they were seamlessly integrated with the rest of the film.  The use of color was very vivid, and the imagery was very "Disney" magical.  The animation of the characters was very tight, well handled hand-drawn animation.  Digital painting allows them to make a flawless presentation of animation and shading using a variety of techniques from traditional cell-shading to the lighter airbrush effects.  The characters themselves are very fluid and flowing, with very good dance moves during all the songs, and flowing animation that really define the characters.  There is a lot of style in this movie, but it oozes with technical know-how.  They have clearly gotten down the fine details of their craft and have perfected into the art it deserves to be.  I especially love the little hyperactive reactions of Tiana's rich friend who gets overly excited quite easily, practically jumping over the other characters.

Overall, I give this a 4 out of 5.  For technical ability, I feel this is as good as you will get anytime soon, however certain other projects looming in the shadows promise to out-shine even this gem.  For characters, I feel that, while these are well-designed characters that develop well through the story, there was still more that could have been done to really bring out the main characters and really round off the others.  As far as story is concerned, it is a good story, with a nice twist, but is lacking the real evolution I was hoping.  Other films by Lasseter (such as Up, Wall-E, etc), have a point in the story when the original goal of the characters are drastically changed, and the entire feel of the movie is altered, to a point where you thought the movie was going to end, but there is still a good 20-30 minutes left.  It is this last half hour or so that really makes these films shine, something this film could desperately use to make it as bright as the other big star movies he has made.  Specifically, there needed to be more between the prince and Tiana, more between the villain and his "powers", as well as more conflict at the end (perhaps a more dramatic and even desperate scene from him), and more to bring the story to a close.
Regardless, I still feel this was a very good movie, which I would recommend to movie and animation lovers, who want to see a witty twist on the classic story, with great music, amazing animation and visuals, and good characters.  If you leave wanting more, perhaps that is a good thing.  It is always better to want more out of a movie, than to leave wishing there was less.