A match made in marketing

Well, it certainly isn’t “The Lion King”. Disney’s latest hand animated venture, “The Princess and the Frog” is their first non-CGI film since the disastrous “Home on the Range” of 2004. While Disney would have you believe that this is the return of the classic animated films of yesteryear, it is a transparent attempt to add an African-American princess to all their merchandise.

While not a bad film, “The Princess and the Frog” does not live up to the high standards Disney normally strives for. The animation is slick, if a bit lazy at times in its reliance on computerized animation techniques. It is a visually pretty movie, but it lacks any of the shine and “Disney Magic” that audiences are wanting to see. This is no artistically inspired piece of passionate filmmaking, this is a filler movie, designed to hit an untapped demographic, and it comes across that way.

The music (done by Randy Newman) was adequate, but uninspired and forgettable. The plot was formulaic to a fault, and sometimes sacrificed logical character development for the sake of sticking to the prescribed tropes of fairy tale romance.

It was a simple story of a prince and a girl who are both turned into frogs, and must figure out how to get back to normal. Sitting in the theater, I began to have the feeling that I had seen this film before. ("The Swan Princess?" "The Emperor’s New Groove?") Disney really phoned this one in.

The voice work was fine, the acting was fine, the entire movie was just fine. But that’s not really good enough. It’s obvious that Disney could care less about making this a good film, and is instead saving all their efforts for 2010’s “Rapunzel” which will be their first CGI fairy tale. So if your looking for the next Disney Classic, you’ll have to wait until then.