The Princess and that one dude
So I went into this movie wanting so, so bad to love it.
The visuals were my favorite part. The art is awesome. The animation is totally awesome, especially the water and the way people move. I love the shadows and the way voodoo is represented. Also on the voodoo note, the writers did their research. It was one of my favorite elements of the story, and it was played accurately and creepily without over-explaining the concept, which was cool. I also thought the the Disney references in the parade were really clever and well done. I'm actually really down with the message too, and I find it really funny that Prince Charming is a playboy who got cut off, and that hard work is emphasised as such a good quality.
The storytelling was kind of strangely paced, and the songs seemed more jammed into the story than anything. I think it would've flowed a lot better without awkwardly placed musical numbers. However it is a disney animated feature, so of course there have to be songs...which unfortunately seemed kind of half-assed or just not that well done. I was actually kind of excited about the music beforehand- I like blues and (surprisingly) zydeco, but something about the songs was a little off the whole time. I'm not sure what it was. The visuals acompanying the songs were, of course, radical, especially during "Friends on the other side", the villain song.
For the most part, the movie is really good about not being racist to black people. It doesn't whitewash the characters but it doesn't reduce them to stereotypes. They even adresss the class differences and racism of the time. It's all really well done and makes me really happy about Disney. The witch doctor is drawn kind of as a charicature, but I'm not sure how much of that is racism and how much is just character design (Disney usually draws angular, long-faced and bug-eyed villains- think Scar or Jafar, who's certainly a racist design but that's not what I'm talking about right now.) And anyway it's not like they resorted to hillbilly jokes. Oh wait, yes they did. But the Creole fireflies were totally well done right? Oh wait no they were silly stereotypes too. Maybe I'm being oversensitive but it bugs me that the characters who live in the swamp are all dumb, toothless hicks, even the good guys.
Also? I didn't really laugh at any of the jokes, not even the bad puns. I am usually a sucker for bad puns. I think a kid would've found it a lot more funny though.
So my final thoughts? It's really excellent eye candy, and I really hope Disney can get back into the 2D hand drawn business. However, the story, music, and characters never really caught me, and I found myself just getting lost in the animation. I guess I'd be more likely to show this to a kid than most children's movies, but that's mostly because of the morals and the strong female lead. At the end of the day The Princess And The Frog was just sort of...ok.
Let's end this on a totally positive note: Have you guys listened to Matt & Kim? They are way more than ok, they are fun lo-fi awesomeness. I'm kind of in love with them right now, well, them and Connor Oberst.