MESSAGE IN THE MOVIES

The Princess and the Frog Rated G

Directed by John Musker and Ron Clements.  Animated Feature.

Photo © Walt Disney Studios
Movie Review by Rev. Bruce Batchelor Glader

Tiana (voiced by Anika Noni Rose) is a resourceful young African-American girl, growing up in New Orleans in the early 1900s.  Her mother Eudora (Oprah Winfrey) is a seamstress and her daddy James (Terrence Howard) is an aspiring restaurateur with a great recipe for gumbo. 

But America goes to fight World War I and James doesn’t come home.  That doesn’t dash Tiana’s dreams to open a restaurant that would make her daddy proud. 

But when she meets a talking frog who claims to be Prince Naveen from the kingdom of Maldonia (Bruno Campos), turned into a reptile by the evil Dr. Facilier (Keith David), her luck soon changes.

  Naveen persuades her to give him a quick kiss to break the spell, but this turns Tiana into a frog as well, and the two of them hop off to have some adventures along the way.  There’s nothing really wrong about the story, but there’s nothing particularly memorable about this film. 

Tiana is a strong woman from beginning to end (it’s only the prince who has to grow up and change), so there’s not much character development.  The animated sidekicks are Louis, a trumpet-playing alligator (Michael-Leon Wooley), and Ray (Jim Cummings), a Cajun firefly in love with a star in the sky. 

There are some so-so slapstick scenes in the Bayou that reminded me of how much better the Looney Tunes did this kind of stuff.  Disney’s been giving themselves a pat on the back for making a major film with a black heroine, but it could be argued that race really doesn’t enter into the storyline very much. 

And while I’ll admit that the use of black magic is a necessary device for the human-frog transformation (somewhat similar to the use of magic in most traditional fairy tale stories), the subtext of demonic and evil forces is a bit disconcerting. 

Parents of younger children need to decide if this is something they want to have to explain to their kids.  If the Disney name wasn’t attached to this film (along with major star support from Oprah Winfrey), I doubt that it would have been much of a hit.  Sure, it’s okay, but I expected more from Disney and much more from co-directors Musker and Clements who made the wonderful classic Disney films The Little Mermaid and Aladdin.

The Mouse House raised the bar on what to expect from an animated cartoon; it’s too bad to see them lower it a bit.

Pitchfork Rating:
Three halos. (An upbeat and positive story about the hard work required to be successful, trapped inside of a rather bland movie.)

Two picthforks. (For the prominence of voodoo in the storyline.)

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