Princess and the Frog opens in New York, Los Angeles — read the review

The Princess and the Frog

“The Princess and the Frog,” Disney’s first hand-drawn animated feature in five years, isn’t only a throwback in style.

When it opened today, it also will be the first Disney animated film since 2003’s “Brother Bear” to start in limited release in New York and Los Angeles (Read the review below). Like that movie and many other of its traditional cartoons, including “The Lion King” and “Hercules,” the studio is pairing the two initial runs of “Princess” with an “experience” that includes games, actresses dressed as Disney princesses, props, costumes and other activities that give kids fun time beyond the film.

John Lasseter and 'Princess Tiana' at the New York film opening

Check out images from the film

Check out images of character Princess Tiana’s debut at Walt Disney World

All those extras mean ticket prices will be substantially higher than for a normal picture. Disney is charging $30 for general admission tickets, $50 for the best seats and $20 per person for groups at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City and on the studio lot in Burbank. (Disney’s El Capitan Theater in Hollywood, its traditional spot for high-profile L.A. runs, is currently using its 3-D projection system to play “A Christmas Carol.”)

The “ultimate Disney event,” as the studio’s Web site calls it, will play until Sunday, Dec. 13, the first weekend that “The Princess and the Frog” plays nationwide. Disney already has racked up more than $3.2 million in pre-sales. In Burbank, all but one show from Wednesday through Sunday is sold out, while the larger Ziegfeld in New York has fully booked half of its screenings over the holiday weekend.

In the meantime, high demand and inflated ticket prices — more than six times the U.S. average at the top end — means “Princess” should see huge grosses for a two-theater run. It’s no accident that the top seven per-theater averages of all time on Box Office Mojo are all Disney animated runs, and it’s very likely that “The Princess and the Frog” will join them this weekend, particularly with Friday being a holiday.

– Ben Fritz, Los Angeles Times

‘The Princess and the Frog’ grants us a return to Disney’s song-filled fantasy

By Betsy Sharkey
Lost Angeles Times Film Critic

Go ahead and pucker up. Because long before “The Princess and the Frog” is over you’ll want to smooch the charming couple, air kiss a romantic firefly and hug a voodoo queen in this foot-stomping, smile-inducing, heart-warming animated twist on the old Brothers Grimm frog-prince fairy tale.

The filmmakers have brewed up a delicious roots story in every sense of the word. “The Princess and the Frog” is set in the 1920s jazz age in the New Orleans heart of it all. It’s the studio’s return to the lush, fluid beauty of hand-drawn animation. It’s an old-fashioned fairy tale, even though they’ve had some fun with the story. And it’s set to music in the grand tradition of “Beauty and the Beast,” which is to say the neoclassic ‘90s brand of Disney animation.

That might make “The Princess and the Frog” seem like a creature of ancient times, particularly since kids these days are raised on 3-D flash. The effect, though, is the opposite. After being bombarded by so much computer-generated, motion-captured high-and-higher jinks, the film feels fresh — a discovery, or a rediscovery, depending on your age.

At the keyboards, we have the always flavorful Mr. Randy Newman creating a spicy gumbo of blues, gospel, jazz, Dixieland and, because we are in the Big Easy, a dash or two of zydeco along with the Tobasco (nothing says “now” like product placement).

There’s plenty of razzle-dazzle, starting with Anika Noni Rose, the perky third of the “Dreamgirls,” who’s lending her fabulous pipes to Tiana, the hardworking lovely with big plans at the center of this story. Yes, a prince on the side might be nice, but this career girl from humble beginnings has her eye on an empty warehouse that will make a fine restaurant where the flappers will be hot, the jazz will be cool and the food oh so divine.

Though there are all sorts of barriers to be broken and despite a day job as a maid that has her forever pinching pennies, Tiana is not one to give up. That shouldn’t come as a complete surprise since she has the ultimate overachiever in Oprah as her mama, though for some reason directors John Musker and Ron Clements, who wrote the script with Rob Edwards, call her Eudora. No matter.

This being New Orleans, the dark arts are a major factor in the story with Keith David’s Dr. Facilier making so many deals with so many devils it will make your head spin and possibly frighten some little ones when those voodoo masks start multiplying and moving.

In keeping with the ethnic blend, the song and dance man with the Hugh Jackman good looks, only darker, is Prince Naveen (Bruno Campos), from the mythical kingdom of Maldonia. Whether it’s a worry about offending African Americans with “cartoonish” exaggeration, or a desire to make the film palatable for white audiences, or both, the animators have been very careful with their pens when it comes to drawing black characters on the page. Just about everyone here has “good hair,” and Tiana could be Halle Berry’s kissing cousin. So while it’s not Disney’s first time at dipping a toe in multicultural waters — “Aladdin,” “Mulan” and “Pocahontas” were there first — “The Princess and the Frog” still feels like baby steps.

With all of Dr. Facilier’s scheming, Naveen is about to be green anyway, which makes him very jumpy, especially since there are gun-toting moonshiners who fancy frying up his legs. He was supposed to be kissed by Charlotte (Jennifer Cody), a rich Southern belle, but in a mistake of monumental proportions, he smooches Tiana instead and we have two frogs, not one, and no happily ever after in sight.

The rest of the film trots out many of the swampy tropes of childhood — always be good, be careful who you trust, follow your dreams, it’s what’s inside that counts. But what could be tried as well as true is not, because the filmmakers have done to the bayou what Mardi Gras does to the French Quarter — put music, magic, light and laughter everywhere.

There are the big Broadway-style numbers we’ve come to expect from Disney musicals of that only slightly bygone era, the kind that let the animation team go wild. One of “The Princess and the Frog’s” best comes when a swarm of fireflies seeks a blind voodoo queen named Mama Odie (Jenifer Lewis), who might be the only one powerful enough to break Dr. Facilier’s curse. Led by a hopeless romantic named Ray (Jim Cummings), a bit of a dim bulb, the bayou turns into a high-kicking extravaganza with singing and dancing swamp critters pulling off complicated choreography while Louis (Michael-Leon Wooley), a gator with a jazz obsession, blows a really mean trumpet.

Clements and Musker are pretty much Disney born and raised with two of the studio’s best musical showstoppers, “The Little Mermaid” and “Aladdin,” heading their resumes. With “The Princess and the Frog” they’ve gotten just about everything right. The dialogue is fresh-prince clever, the themes are ageless, the rhythms are riotous and the return to a primal animation style is beautifully executed.

So shake a stick at those Grimm Brothers, when it comes to princesses and frogs we now have a beautiful, boisterous sister in charge.

betsy.sharkey@latimes.com