Go See The Princess Frog

Recently I went to go see Disney’s return to the two-dimensional world, The Princess Frog. Now there’s really no excuse for a grown man seeing a cartoon so I would like to thank Alex for going with me so I didn’t look like complete child. First and foremost, before I rip this movie for what I didn’t like, I would like to say: go see this movie. Go take your kids to see this movie. If you don’t have children go borrow one or take your girlfriend so you have an excuse. Every kid’s flick that is produced today is computer animated and in 3D. The only way we can stop this madness is supporting the different, which in this case is old-school 2D cartoons.

Watching The Princess Frog was refreshing. It was almost like going into a time capsule and going to the movie theatre as a kid. Almost. This movie is criticized mainly for being just a shadow of what 2D greatness Disney used to offer. Of course this movie is going to fall short of Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and The Lion King. It’s almost not fair to try an compare Disney’s first 2D, musical outing in years to those amazing films.

Princess Frog offers lovable supporting characters, lavish musical numbers, the idea of true love and the beauty of New Orleans. I think the main critique I have for this film is that it seems like they sacrificed character development for getting the movie under a certain time. I felt like the main character Titana and the villain, the Shadow Man, were under developed. Especially the Shadowman, I felt like there was so much promise for this villain but nothings ever really explained about him. He has a evil shadow that has a mind of it’s own that’s really never addressed. I think Disney might have thought an audience wouldn’t pay much attention to a 2D film and opted to move the story as quick as possible.

There also has been talks of it being too scary or even possibly evil because of the use of voodoo. This, in my opinion, is over sensitivity. In every Disney movie there are villains that use magic, which I believe when evil is referred to as witchcraft. From Snow White’s evil witch with her poison apple all the way to Hercules’ Hades…who is the mythology form of the devil. I thought this movie was not too scary for most children, but then again the last children’s movie I watched was the horribly frightening Christmas Carol.

At the end of the day this movie is not going to be remembered as one of the greatest Disney movies of all time, but it could be the beginning of a revival in good, quality Disney cartoons. All you have to do is support it.