Reviews - The Princess and the Frog (2009)

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The Princess and the Frog (2009)

Country: USA

Genres: Animation, Family, Fantasy

Director: Ron Clements, John Musker

Writers: Rob Edwards, Ron Clements, John Musker, Greg Erb, ...

Stars: Anika Noni Rose, Bruno Campos, Keith David, Michael-Leon Wooley, ...

A modern day retelling of the classic story The Frog Prince. The Princess and the Frog finds the lives of arrogant, carefree Prince Naveen and hardworking waitress Tiana crossing paths. Prince Naveen is transformed into a frog by a conniving voodoo magician and Tiana, following suit, upon kissing the amphibian royalty. With the help of a trumpet-playing alligator, a Cajun firefly, and an old blind lady who lives in a boat in a tree, Naveen and Tiana must race to break the spell and fulfill their dreams.

100 | Lisa Schwarzbaum

What matters is that Tiana triumphs as both a girl and a frog, that dreams are fulfilled, wrongs are righted, love prevails, and music unites not only a princess and a frog but also kids and grown-ups.

100 | Richard Corliss

In an amazing year for animation, The Princess and the Frog is up at the top. Go on, give it a big kiss.

100 | Amy Biancolli

The animation, sparkling and graceful, also ranks as the studio's best traditional work in ages.

100 | Ann Hornaday

The Princess and the Frog invite viewers to see the world as a lively, mixed-up, even confounding place, to recognize essential parts of ourselves in what we see, and to say: This is what we look like.

88 | Lawrence Toppman

Two things keep the film off Disney's top shelf. First, Naveen is a dull hero; his good-natured vanity isn't engaging until late in the story. Second, Newman's songs are less bland than usual but no more memorable.

88 | Carrie Rickey

The film billed as the first Disney animation to boast an African American "princess" is really about a resourceful bootstrapper in New Orleans, a young woman allergic to the fairy-tale pap spoon-fed to young girls.

88 | James Berardinelli

Randy Newman's songs are catchy and are effective within the movie's context, but I can't see any of them having "legs" beyond the screen the way tunes from the earlier animated musicals did.

88 | Mike Scott

Local viewers will be tickled by the wealth of New Orleans details in the production. One of the best just might be in the film's music.

83 | Tasha Robinson

Disney’s triumphant return to hand-drawn 2-D animation still holds an awful lot of familiar, comfort-food charm.

83 | Marc Mohan

It's no "Fantasia" or "Sleeping Beauty," but it's no "The Rescuers Down Under," either.

80 | Kirk Honeycutt

Marks Disney's rediscovery of a strong narrative loaded with vibrant characters and mind-bending, hilarious situations.

80 | Betsy Sharkey

The dialogue is fresh-prince clever, the themes are ageless, the rhythms are riotous and the return to a primal animation style is beautifully executed.

80 | Mary Elizabeth Williams

The sweetest, most sincere romantic comedy to come along in ages, and a luminous love letter to a great American city.

80 | Dan Kois

Represents a course-correction for Disney's multibillion-dollar princess franchise: It attempts to celebrate the virtues of hard work and pluck, even if the movie itself can feel at times like a lesson rather than an enchantment.

80 | Helen O'Hara

Exactly as good as Musker and Clements’ earlier efforts, so a return to the form of Disney’s early 1990s classics. The animation is gorgeous, the heroine feisty and the animals amusing -- but this may be too scary for the very small.

78 | Marc Savlov

It's Disney's best traditionally animated outing in ages.

75 | Claudia Puig

Emphasizes backing up wishes with hard work. That proviso is a thoughtful message for young moviegoers.

75 | Lou Lumenick

Overall, the film is not quite up to "Aladdin" and "The Little Mermaid" from the same directing team of Ron Clements and John Musker, not to mention the recent string of masterpieces from Pixar.

75 | Roger Ebert

The Princess and the Frog inspires memories of Disney's Golden Age it doesn't quite live up to, as I've said, but it's spritely and high-spirited, and will allow kids to enjoy it without visually assaulting them.

70 | Andrea Gronvall

A welcome return to the Disney tradition of 2-D animation, this lively musical spices up Hans Christian Andersen's "The Frog Prince" by transplanting it to New Orleans in the early 20th century.

63 | Rene Rodriguez

This is minor Disney at best, forgettable at worst.

63 | Michael Phillips

The movie slam-jams its overpacked story in a frenetic, needlessly complicated manner. It lacks for nothing in setting and atmosphere but comes up short where it counts: the characters.

63 | Wesley Morris

The voice actors are also excellent, especially Michael-Leon Wooley as a bouncy trumpet-playing alligator and Jim Cummings as a lovelorn Cajun firefly.

60 | Joe Neumaier

Part of the problem with "P&F" is that Tiana and Naveen's connection feels superficial.

60 | David Fear

Eye-candy–wise, the film plants a big wet smooch; everything else about this happily-ever-after tale, however, feels like a mere air-kiss.

50 | Justin Chang

This cheeky update of a classic fairy tale boasts almost as many talking points as merchandising opportunities.

50 | Scott Foundas

The Princess and the Frog is pleasantly, if unmemorably, drawn. But the movie as a whole never approaches the wit, cleverness, and storytelling brio of the studio's early-1990s animation renaissance (Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King) or pretty much anything by Pixar.

50 | Manohla Dargis

It’s not easy being green. But to judge from how this hand-drawn movie addresses, or rather strenuously avoids, race, it is a lot more difficult to be black.

50 | Joe Williams

It's a worthy cause and an honorable film, the first full-length Disney cartoon with an African-American heroine. But without a strong story, it's a case of one step forward and two steps back.