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Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

A welcome return to the hand-drawn animation style that the studio is renowned for, this film marks the first musical since their Renaissance era. With that, you could say there is a sense of tangible nostalgia as it imitates the exact same structure as the classics before, thus consequently also being its downfall. A hard working waitress aspires to be a restauranteur where she encounters a talking frog who has been cursed by voodoo magic. Believed to be a prince, she kisses the amphibian and becomes a frog herself. A twisted adaptation of the famous fairy tale 'The Frog Prince', Disney have gone back to their roots and crafted a solidly entertaining musical. The animation is visually stunning as usual and makes a refreshing change from the lacklustre CG pictures the studio produced during the mid naughties. New Orleans is bustling with street musicians and a hearty community where you feel absorbed by the rustic watercolours of the signature architecture. Then, switching to a swampy bayou, allows the animators to differentiate between the human perspective of the urban town to the animal viewpoint of the rural marshlands. The protagonist Tiana holds her own with a hint of sassy independence that cements her as one of Disney's more memorable princesses. A myriad of supporting characters including a trumpet-playing alligator, firefly, hoodoo priestess, seamstress, frog hunters, a snake that is used as a guide stick, sugar mill owner and his daughter...I'm sure I'm forgetting more...oh, a valet, creepy stalking shadows and a dog. Highlighting the above is the major issue, there are far too many characters that do not have enough screen time to be developed or atleast memorable. I appreciated the antagonist who utilises voodoo magic to become a puppeteer as he manipulates several characters with curses. The story was well paced with little to no downtime. The musical numbers, whilst performed well, just weren't memorable. I think you've got my point, a wonderful yet unmemorable animation.

Movie Review: "The Princess And The Frog" (2009)After being behind expectations with distribution of "Treasure Planet" in holiday season 2002/2003 with a visually overly-done twist on the classic tale by Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) "Treasure Island", while Pixar features as "Monsters Inc." (2001), "Finding Nemo" (2003) and "The Incredibles" (2004) take over the animated feature world of pleasure-seeking audiences domestically as internationally; Disney Animation Studios under CEO Bob A. Iger decided to solve the problem by incorporating the whole company of Pixar Animation in 2006 into Disney Enterprises.Nevertheless the bold business move in order to secure Disney's frontrunning position in any field of motion picture animation brings a classical branch to an end with this last fulfilling handly-drawn, traditional-looking, highly atmospheric animated adventurous tragic-comic movie, including the obligatory dancing and singing acts set in early 20th century New Orleans, Louisiana, with another daring twist on a classic fairy tale; this time an high-concept interpretation of "The Frog Prince" from the Brother Grimm's collection of tales conceived in the Mid-of-1850s somewhere in Germany; then bodly translated in a painstaking process over five years with a full-developing production period, spreading from 2004 to 2009 by the never-giving-in writing, directing duo of Ron Clements & John Musker, who are also responsible for the action-adventure-comedies "Aladdin" (1992) and more recently with the highly accomplished digital animation feature "Moana" (2016)."The Princess And The Frog" streams passion from every frame, loving its artform matter of traditional analog animation, which even in the best sense under a tightly-calculated budget of just 105 Million U.S. Dollars over 140 Million U.S. Dollars for "Treasure Planet" (2002) seven years earlier, while digital competitors, usually with a shorter production time-frame completing their schedule from shooting draft to the final release in less then three years, here receive actually close-to a doubled-budget as Pixar's "Up" released in summer time of the same year of 2009, before a year later Disney's "Tangled" (2010) pushed the budget-ladder to never-reached again heights of a 260 Million U.S. Dollars production expenses for a single animated feature.In case of "The Princess And The Frog", the meticulous dedication as to say passion for all-time Walt Disney classics as "Pinocchio" (1940) or "Bambi" (1942) emotionally out-going from the entire production team gets evidence in a classic-Hollywood-paced editorial by Jeff Draheim between a singing, dancing and acting the way through life main character, here with another daydreaming, yet hardworking afro-american waitress Tiana, longing for a restaurant of her own. She meets the Frog eventually on a Southern-fashionable stylish ball in tinted into earthy-colors of symmetry and great add-on digital shading effects before embarking of the adventure of a life-time into the swamps of Louisiana, meeting scary as lovable creatures of the night as show-stealing trumpet-playing Crocodile Louis, animated in the most accomplished manner since crocodiles chasing hippos in Walt Disney's "Fantasia" (1940), here portrayed with a convincing voice by vocal artist Michael-Leon Wooley.Together they confront the grey-area-indulging character of Dr. Facilier, in looks and mimical gestures too close to the character of Jafar from "Aladdin" (1992) to be fully orginally, but nevertheless actor Keith David presents himself in joyful vocal-performing moods to live up to the task in constant-transforming production design interiors of the picture-defining musical act "Friends from the Other Side" with music created by long-time Disney-as-Pixar-movies-enchanting composer Randy Newman, who righteously earned two Oscar Nominations for Original Song, especially for accompanying the visually most-striking scene by re-utilizing special layering effects in golden 1920s art-déco styles, homaging early motion picture history of silent era, while the character of Tiana sings the utmost of charms and happiness-spreading main title of "Almost There".© 2018 Felix Alexander Dausend (Cinemajesty Entertainments LLC)

After TIME magazine called The Princess and the Frog "the best film of 2009" and my folks sang its praises, perhaps it was only natural that the bar would be set too high. Then again, it's possible that I have been spoiled for so long by the brilliant originality displayed year after year by Pixar that a princess tale by Disney Animation Studios which adheres strictly to formula was bound to disappoint, even slightly. I suppose I should be pleased that Frog was as enjoyable as it was; I was glad to have seen it, and children likely will be more so. Then again, with some potentially nightmare- inducing scenes, maybe not.I'll return to that in a moment. For now, as they say, back to formula. Princess character to inspire a whole new wave of Halloween costumes, PJ's, coloring books, and must-have dolls? Check. Anthropomorphized animals that sing, dance, provide comic relief, and play to broad cultural stereotypes? Check. Musical numbers to spice things up? Check. Power-hungry villain whose nefarious plot happens to involve breaking up the princess' romance? Check. Message about being true to yourself and chasing your dreams? Check. Happily ever after ending? Checkmate.Then again, enough ingredients have been changed to keep it fun. As has been highly publicized, the princess character this time is African-American, and the diversity is very welcome. Though it's true that America has no royalty, the title makes sense by the finale. The combination of a black lead with a New Orleans setting allows for the standard musical numbers to be boosted by Gospel and jazz styles that are truly catchy and stand uniquely apart from Disney's admittedly excellent, but generally uniform, musical canon.The traditional animation, especially the attention to detail in recreating New Orleans, is stunning, providing some hope for the future of hand-drawn animation in today's computer-generated market. The peripheral characters, including a trumpet-playing bayou alligator, a Cajun firefly, and redneck hunters, are amusing. However, Disney is lucky that, in my experience, people from the South tend to have a better sense of humor than the rest of us about being portrayed through the lens of cultural stereotypes, otherwise they'd have a real uproar on their hands.The broad characterization of the prince, however, was less charming to me than it seems meant to be. Sounding like a poor man's Antonio Banderas, the writers seem to overestimate his entertainment value. I'm sure many will find him hilarious, and I thought he was likable enough, but from time to time I found him mildly annoying, as if the filmmakers were trying to capitalize on the popularity of the much funnier Puss-in-Boots from the Shrek films.On the plus side, it helps that the message about chasing your dreams and being true to yourself is bolstered this time by very clear moral instruction about working hard instead of merely wishing upon a star. This, coupled with the culturally diverse cast of characters, can be appreciated by children and adults alike.Of concern to parents should be the portrayal of voodoo magic by the villain, specifically with regards to the creepy animation of his "friends on the other side," evil spirits who do his bidding after he makes a pact with them. Drawn as shadows, they are nevertheless quite scary. As an adult viewer, I wasn't especially troubled by it: the voodoo magic is shown as evil and the villain pays the price for meddling with it. But as someone who had very young children with him, I was concerned about nightmares and found myself thinking that the film should have been PG instead of G.Fans of classic Disney princess tales should find much to enjoy here, and others likely won't regret seeing it. But with apologies to TIME magazine, The Princess and the Frog is not the year's best film. That title belongs to Pixar's Up.

Visually this movie looks beautiful, but unfortunately it was a little boring, which is kind of odd for a Disney film. I can look past almost every other hangup I might have with a movie if I am genuinely entertained, but not boredom. Not to say that the entire movie was boring, but enough that I did notice it, and when you get to point in a movie where you don't really care what is going on, well... that pretty much ends it. After seeing it I knew I had no desire to ever see it again even though some aspects were quite good. I know that most Disney movies have their predictable elements, but this movie seemed so by- the-numbers that it never surprised me and never moved outside the box.