Review for The Princess and the Frog

The Princess and the Frog is a wonderful animated film and the fact that it isn't CGI is a testament to the Disney legacy. After the horrendous Home on the Range and Atlantis: The Lost Empire and the mega success of the Pixar films the powers that be shut the doors on the traditional animation that brought Disney so much success. Finally, John Lasseter (Toy Story) was given the reigns of Disney studios and rather than sacrifice it over more CGI films he decided to reboot the traditional animation and who better to do this than with John Musker and Ron Clements. Who? The people behind The Little Mermaid, Aladdin and so you know that these guys would know what they are doing.

And boy do they!

The Princess and the Frog tells the classic tale of The Frog Prince, only with a unique twist. The basic story is when Prince Naveen visits New Orleans he is tricked by Dr Facilier, a voodoo man, who transforms him into a frog. This time when the Princess Tiana (Not exactly a princess) kisses a frog, she turns herself into a frog. This leads to a wonderful journey through the bayou of New Orleans to encounter Louis, a Gator who plays the trumpet, Ray a hopelessly romantic firefly amongst others. This is all told with a wonderful array of jazz-themed songs provided by Randy Newman. The animation is a wonderful throwback to the good old days of Disney and watching you may forget that any CGI animation had ever existed. It's funny to watch a film without explosions, crude jokes and crazy CGI coming out at all angles and the simplicity of all of this is so refreshing. The humour is warm and the story is so well told that I was surprised that it was not nominated for the Oscar as it as good as any film nominated though thoroughly deserved the nominations for the songs and animated film (Though the mighty Up had that one wrapped up already).

There are some wonderful features available on the disk and it is great to see Disney use the capacity of Blu-ray to give us everything, rather than make us wait for seventy years. The director's commentary is excellent, deleted scenes (which are really just storyboard sections) are great and really some of the scenes could have easily fit in the film.
The Making of is a great look at the creation of the film and even though it is only twenty-two minutes, it is concise in showing the process of the making of this film from beginning to end. This is supported by six featurettes The Princess and the Animator, Return to the Animated Musical, two focusing on Tiana and Dr Facilier and The Return to Hand-drawn Animation and Disney Legacy on the Disney animators and the return to the traditional animation, but they are all a little too short for my liking. The disk is rounded off with a Neyo music video, Princess Game and Art galleries which seem to be everything from the development of the film from storyboards to concept art and it is so refreshing to be allowed to choose the pictures and not have to watch a slideshow.
The Princess and the Frog is a wonderful return to form for Disney and possibly their best traditionally animated film since The Lion King. Scratch that, this is one of the best animated films I've seen in a long time. END OF STORY! I only hope that there are more to come, as I've kissed far too many CGI frogs.