Psycho's Movie Reviews #266: The Princess & The Frog (2009)

The Princess and the Frog is a 2009 American animated musical fantasy romantic comedy film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. The 49th Disney animated feature film, the film is loosely based on the novel The Frog Princess by E. D. Baker, which is in turn based on the German folk tale "The Frog Prince" as collected by the Brothers Grimm. Written and directed by Ron Clements and John Musker, the film stars Anika Noni Rose, Bruno Campos, Michael-Leon Wooley, Jim Cummings, Jennifer Cody, John Goodman, Keith David, Peter Bartlett, Jenifer Lewis, Oprah Winfrey, and Terrence Howard. Set in the 1920s New Orleans, the film tells the story of a hardworking waitress named Tiana who dreams of opening her own restaurant. After kissing a prince who has been turned into a frog by an evil witch doctor, Tiana becomes a frog herself and must find a way to turn back into a human before it is too late.

The Princess and the Frog began production under the working title The Frog Princess. It marked Disney's brief return to traditional animation, as it was the mainstream animation studio's first traditionally animated film since Home on the Range (2004). Clements and Musker, directors of Disney's highly successful films The Little Mermaid (1989), Aladdin (1992), and Hercules (1997) returned to Disney to direct The Princess and the Frog. The studio returned to a Broadway musical-style format frequently used during the Disney Renaissance and features music written by composer Randy Newman, well known for his musical involvement in Pixar films such as the Toy Story franchise.

The Princess and the Frog opened in limited release in New York and Los Angeles on November 25, 2009, and in wide release on December 11, 2009. The film received largely positive reviews from critics and audiences, praising the animation (particularly the revival of the medium), characters, music, and themes, and was also successful at the box office, ranking first place on its opening weekend in North America, and grossing around $269 million worldwide becoming Disney’s most successful traditionally animated film since Lilo & Stitch in 2002, and the animation studio’s most successful film overall since Tarzan in 1999, ten years earlier. It received three Oscar nominations at the 82nd Academy Awards: one for Best Animated Feature and two for Best Original Song. It lost to Up and Crazy Heart, respectively.

Plot

In 1912 New Orleans, Tiana and her friend Charlotte La Bouff listen to Tiana's mother read The Frog Prince. Charlotte finds the story romantic; Tiana declares she will never kiss a frog.

Fourteen years later, in 1926, Tiana works two waitress jobs, saving to open her own restaurant, a dream she shared with her late father, who died in World War I. She devotes her time to her dream, leaving no time to socialize with friends.

Prince Naveen of Maldonia arrives in New Orleans. Despite being royalty, he has no money because he was financially cut-off. Naveen intends to marry a rich Southern belle like Charlotte. Charlotte's father, the wealthy Eli "Big Daddy" La Bouff hosts a masquerade ball in Naveen's honour. After Tiana suggests the quickest way to a man's heart is through his stomach, Charlotte hires Tiana to make her "man-catching" beignets for the ball, paying Tiana enough to buy a dilapidated mill to convert into her dream restaurant.

Meanwhile, Naveen and his valet, Lawrence, encounter Dr. Facilier, a voodoo witch doctor who convinces them he can make their dreams come true. Instead, Facilier's voodoo magic transforms Naveen into a frog and Lawrence gains Naveen's appearance through a voodoo talisman containing Naveen's blood. Facilier intends for the disguised Lawrence to marry Charlotte, and then plans to kill her father with a voodoo doll so he can gain the La Bouffs' fortune.

At the ball, the realtors, the Fenner Brothers, tell Tiana she has been outbid for the mill. During this conversation, she falls into the beignets, dirtying her costume. Charlotte sees Tiana's dirty dress and provides her with a princess gown. Despondent from being outbid, Tiana wishes on the Evening Star for her dream to come true. She then meets Naveen in frog form. Believing her to be a princess, Naveen asks for a kiss to break Facilier's spell. Tiana reluctantly accepts after Naveen promises to finance her restaurant.

But instead, Tiana transforms into a frog when she kisses Naveen because she is not a true princess. Tiana tackles Naveen, sending them flying into the masquerade ball. A chase ensues and they escape to a bayou. There, they meet a trumpet-playing alligator named Louis, who dreams of playing Jazz. After informing Louis they are actually humans under a voodoo spell, Louis identifies another voodoo user, Mama Odie, who lives in the bayou and may be able to help them.

On the way there, they meet a Cajun firefly named Ray, who is enamoured with the Evening Star, believing it is a firefly named "Evangeline." Ray guides the group to Mama Odie. During the journey, Tiana and Naveen begin developing feelings for each other. Meanwhile, Facilier is enraged upon discovering Naveen's escape; the talisman disguising Lawrence as Naveen requires Naveen's blood and without it Lawrence returns to his normal appearance. Facilier asks the voodoo spirits (his "friends on the other side") to help capture Naveen, offering them the souls of the people of New Orleans in exchange, and they grant him an army of shadow demons to do his bidding.

The demons find Naveen, but Mama Odie fends them off. She tells Naveen he can still break the spell with a princess's kiss; Big Daddy has been crowned Mardi Gras king, making Charlotte a princess until midnight. Naveen tells Ray he loves Tiana. Naveen intends to propose to Tiana, but instead selflessly decides to help finance her dream restaurant by marrying Charlotte.

Naveen is captured by the shadow demons and brought to Facilier. Ray tells Tiana that Naveen loves her. Tiana goes to the parade to confess her love, only to find Lawrence, masquerading as Naveen, marrying Charlotte. Tiana flees, heartbroken. Ray rescues the real Naveen, steals the talisman, and finds Tiana to explain everything. He then helps Tiana escape, and fends off the demons, but is mortally wounded by Facilier. Facilier offers to make Tiana's dream come true in exchange for the talisman. Realizing she would rather be with Naveen and that she would be dishonouring her father by accepting, Tiana destroys it. With Facilier's plan foiled, Tiana watches the voodoo spirits drag him into their world for failing to pay back his debt, leaving his frightened expression engraved on a tombstone.

After Lawrence is exposed and arrested, Tiana reveals her love to Naveen. Charlotte agrees to kiss Naveen so he and Tiana can be human together, but the clock strikes midnight, and the kiss fails. Ray dies shortly thereafter and during his funeral, a new star appears next to Evangeline. Tiana and Naveen marry as frogs. Marrying a prince makes Tiana a princess, so both are restored to human form after their kiss. Later they return to New Orleans to legally marry and open their restaurant.

Production

Early Development

Disney had once announced that 2004's Home on the Range would be their last traditionally animated film. After the company's acquisition of Pixar in 2006, Ed Catmull and John Lasseter, the new president and chief creative officer of Disney Animation Studios, reversed this decision and reinstated hand-drawn animation at the studio. Many animators who had either been laid off or had left the studio when the traditional animation units were dissolved in 2003 were located and re-hired for the project. Lasseter also brought back directors Ron Clements and John Musker, whose earlier works include The Great Mouse Detective (1986), The Little Mermaid (1989), Aladdin (1992), Hercules (1997), and Treasure Planet (2002). The duo had left the company in 2005, but Lasseter requested their return to Disney to direct and write the film and had let them choose the style of animation (traditional or CGI) they wanted to use.

The story for the film began development by merging two projects in development at Disney and Pixar at the time, both based around "The Frog Prince" fairy tale. One of the projects was based on E. D. Baker's The Frog Princess, in which the story's heroine (Princess Emma) kisses a prince turned frog (Prince Eadric), only to become a frog herself. Jorgen Klubien also believes that a story he was working on at Pixar, called "The Spirit of New Orleans, a Pixar Ghost Story", served as inspiration for the movie. The Princess and the Frog returns to the musical film format used in many of the previously successful Disney animated films, with a style Musker and Clements declared, like with Aladdin and The Little Mermaid, had inspiration from Golden Age Disney features such as Cinderella.

Musker and Clements thought that given so many fairy tales were set in Europe, they could do an American fairy tale. They stated that they chose New Orleans as a tribute to the history of the city, for its "magical" qualities, and because it was Lasseter's favourite city. The directors spent ten days in Louisiana before starting to write the film.

The Princess and the Frog was originally announced as The Frog Princess in July 2006, and early concepts and songs were presented to the public at The Walt Disney Company's annual shareholders' meeting in March 2007. These announcements drew criticism from African-American media outlets, due to elements of the Frog Princess story, characters, and settings considered distasteful. African-American critics disapproved of the original name for the heroine, "Maddy", due to its similarity to the derogatory term "mammy". Also protested were Maddy's original career as a chambermaid, the choice to have the Black heroine's love interest be a non-Black prince, and the use of a Black male voodoo witchdoctor as the film's villain. The Frog Princess title was also thought by critics to be a slur on French people. Also questioned was the film's setting of New Orleans, which had been heavily damaged by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, resulting in the expulsion of a large number of mostly Black residents. Critics claimed the choice of New Orleans as the setting for a Disney film with a Black heroine was an affront to the Katrina victims' plight.

In response to these early criticisms, the film's title was changed in May 2007 from The Frog Princess to The Princess and the Frog. The name "Maddy" was changed to "Tiana", and the character's occupation was altered from chambermaid to waitress. Talk show host Oprah Winfrey was hired as a technical consultant for the film, leading to her taking a voice-acting role in the film as Tiana's mother, Eudora.

Writing and Themes

The head of story, Don Hall, described the plot as a fairy tale "twisted enough that it seems new and fresh", with a kingdom that is a modern city, a handsome prince that is a "knuckleheaded playboy" and a variation on the fairy godmother with Mama Odie. Co-writer Rob Edwards also said The Princess and the Frog was "a princess movie for people who don't like princess movies". As the writers thought Tiana's character motivation of simply dreaming of having her own restaurant was not appealing enough, they expanded so it was her father's as well, with the extra philosophy of "food bringing people together from all walks of life". Musker and Clements stated that while Tiana already starts as a sympathetic character, the events of the plot make her "understand things in a deeper level" and change people around her. Both protagonists would learn from each other—Naveen to take responsibilities, Tiana to enjoy life—as well as figuring from Ray's passion for Evangeline that the perfect balance is brought by having someone you love to share the experience. Tiana became the first African-American Disney Princess.

Tiana was inspired in part by famed restaurateur Leah Chase, who Clements and Musker met on their research trip to New Orleans. Clements elaborated, "There's a woman in New Orleans named Lee (sic) Chase who was a waitress and ultimately opened a restaurant with her husband we met with her and we talked with her and she went to kind of into her story, her philosophy about food, which is a big element of the movie."

Voice Cast

On December 1, 2006, a detailed casting call was announced for the film at the Manhattan Theatre Source forum. The casting call states the film as being an American fairy tale musical set in New Orleans during the 1926 Jazz Age and provides a detailed list of the film's major characters.

In February 2007, it was reported that Dreamgirls actresses Jennifer Hudson and Anika Noni Rose were top contenders for the voice of Tiana, and that Alicia Keys directly contacted Walt Disney Studios chairman Dick Cook about voicing the role. It was later reported that Tyra Banks was considered for the role as well. By April 2007, it was confirmed that Rose would be voicing Tiana. Three months later, it was reported that Keith David would be doing the voice of Doctor Facilier, the villain of the film.

Animation and Design

Clements and Musker had agreed early on that the style they were aiming for was primarily that of Lady and the Tramp (1955), a film which they and John Lasseter feel represents "the pinnacle of Disney's style". "After that, everything started becoming more stylized, like Sleeping Beauty, 101 Dalmatians—which are fantastic films as well, but there's a particular style (to Lady and the Tramp) that's so classically Disney." Lady and the Tramp also heavily informed the style of the New Orleans scenes, while Disney's Bambi (1942) served as the template for the bayou scenes. Bambi was described as a stylistic reference for the painted backgrounds, as according to art director Ian Gooding "Bambi painted what it feels like to be in the forest instead of the forest" so The Princess and the Frog would in turn try capturing the essence of roaming through New Orleans.

The former trend in Disney's hand-drawn features where the characters and cinematography were influenced by a CGI-look had been abandoned. Andreas Deja, a veteran Disney animator who supervised the character of Mama Odie, says "I always thought that maybe we should distinguish ourselves to go back to what 2D is good at, which is focusing on what the line can do rather than volume, which is a CG kind of thing. So we are doing less extravagant Treasure Planet kind of treatments. You have to create a world but we're doing it more simply. What we're trying to do with Princess and the Frog is hook up with things that the old guys did earlier. It's not going to be graphic…". Deja also mentions that Lasseter was aiming for the Disney sculptural and dimensional look of the 1950s: "All those things that were non-graphic, which means go easy on the straight lines and have one volume flow into the other—an organic feel to the drawing." Lasseter also felt that traditional animation created more character believability. For example, with Louis the alligator, created by Eric Goldberg, Lasseter said: "It's the believability of this large character being able to move around quite like that." Choreographer Betsy Baytos was brought by the directors to lead a team of eccentric dancers that gave reference to make each character a different style of movement. The character design tried to create beautiful drawings through subtle shapes, particularly for most characters being human. For the frog versions of Tiana and Naveen, while the animators started with realistic designs, they eventually went for cutesy characters "removing all that is unappealing in frogs", similar to Pinocchio's Jiminy Cricket.

Toon Boom Animation's Toon Boom Harmony software was used as the main software package for the production of the film, as the Computer Animation Production System (CAPS) system that Disney developed with Pixar in the 1980s for use on their previous traditionally animated films had become outdated by 2004. The Harmony software was augmented with a number of plug-ins to provide CAPS-like effects such as shading on cheeks and smoke effects. The reinstated traditional unit's first production, a 2007 Goofy cartoon short entitled How to Hook Up Your Home Theater, was partly animated without paper by using Harmony and Wacom Cintiq pressure-sensitive tablets. The character animators found some difficulty with this approach, and decided to use traditional paper and pencil drawings, which were then scanned into the computer systems, for The Princess and the Frog.

The one exception to the new Toon Boom Harmony pipeline was the "Almost There" dream sequence, which utilized an Art Deco graphic style based on the art of Harlem Renaissance painter Aaron Douglas. Supervised by Eric Goldberg and designed by Sue Nichols, the "Almost There" sequence's character animation was done on paper without going through the clean-up animation department, and scanned directly into Photoshop. The artwork was then enhanced to affect the appearance of painted strokes and fills, and combined with backgrounds, using Adobe After Effects.

The visual effects and backgrounds for the film were created digitally using Cintiq tablet displays. Marlon West, one of Disney's veteran animation visual effects supervisors, says about the production; "Those guys had this bright idea to bring back hand-drawn animation, but everything had to be started again from the ground up. One of the first things we did was focus on producing shorts, to help us re-introduce the 2D pipeline. I worked as vfx supervisor on the Goofy short, How to Hook Up Your Home Theater. It was a real plus for the effects department, so we went paperless for The Princess and the Frog." The backgrounds were painted digitally using Adobe Photoshop, and many of the architectural elements were based upon 3D models built in Autodesk Maya.[11] Much of the clean-up animation, digital ink-and-paint, and compositing were outsourced to third-party companies in Orlando, Florida (Premise Entertainment), Toronto, Ontario, Canada (Yowza! Animation), and Brooklin, São Paulo, Brazil (HGN Produções).

Music

Originally, Alan Menken was considered to be in charge of the soundtrack. However, Lasseter thought that since Menken scored the Disney film Enchanted (2007), the music might be too repetitive, especially the fact that some previous Renaissance Disney animated films technically had other songwriters (particularly The Lion King, Mulan, and Tarzan). Lasseter realized that Randy Newman, whom he had previously worked with, was the perfect choice for the film and replaced Menken with him, due to the fact that Newman is a jazz composer and grew up in New Orleans, making him compatible with the project´s musical setting that is based on. Newman had also written the songs for another Broadway-style musical 2D animated feature, Warner Bros.' Cats Don't Dance (1997), and had written the songs for Toy Story (1995).

During Disney's 2007 shareholder meeting, Randy Newman and the Dirty Dozen Brass Band performed the film's opening number, "Down in New Orleans", with famous New Orleans singer Dr. John singing, while slides of pre-production art from the film played on a screen. Other songs in the film include "Almost There" (a solo for Tiana), "Dig a Little Deeper" (a song for Mama Odie), "When We're Human" (a song for Louis, Tiana and Naveen [as frogs]), "Friends on the Other Side" (a solo for Doctor Facilier), and "Gonna Take You There" and "Ma Belle Evangeline" (two solos for Ray). Newman composed, arranged, and conducted the music for the film, a mixture of jazz, zydeco, blues, and gospel styles performed by the voice cast members for the respective characters while R&B singer-songwriter Ne-Yo wrote and performed the end title song "Never Knew I Needed", an R&B love song referring to the romance between the film's two main characters, Tiana and Naveen. Supported by a music video by Melina, "Never Knew I Needed" was issued to radio outlets as a commercial single from the Princess and the Frog soundtrack.

The film's soundtrack album, The Princess and the Frog: Original Songs and Score, contains the ten original songs from the film and seven instrumental pieces. The soundtrack was released on November 23, 2009, the day before the limited release of the film in New York and Los Angeles.

Release/Reception/Box Office

The film premiered in theatres with a limited run in New York and Los Angeles beginning on November 25, 2009, followed by wide release on December 11, 2009. The film was originally set for release on Christmas Day 2009, but its release date was changed due to a competing family film from Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, scheduled for release the same day. The Princess and the Frog received a limited re-release in AMC Theatres, lasting for one week from October 6 to October 12, 2017 as part of the Dream Big, Princess campaign.

Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported the film has an 85% approval rating based on 200 reviews, with an average rating of 7.40/10. The site's general consensus is that "The warmth of traditional Disney animation makes this occasionally lightweight fairy-tale update a lively and captivating confection for the holidays." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 73 out of 100 based on 29 critics, indicating "generally favourable reviews".

Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly gave the film an "A" grade and applauded the film's creative team for "upholding the great tradition of classic Disney animation". Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter praised Walt Disney Animation for "rediscovering its traditional hand-drawn animation" and for "a thing called story". David Germain of the Associated Press wrote that "The Princess and the Frog is not the second coming of Beauty and the Beast or The Lion King. It's just plain pleasant, an old-fashioned little charmer that's not straining to be the next glib animated compendium of pop-culture flotsam."

Justin Chang of Variety was less receptive, stating "this long-anticipated throwback to a venerable house style never comes within kissing distance of the studio's former glory". Joe Neumaier of the New York Daily News gave the film three stars out of five stars while saying "The Princess and the Frog breaks the colour barrier for Disney princesses, but is a throwback to traditional animation and her story is a rethread". Village Voice's Scott Foundas found that "the movie as a whole never approached the wit, cleverness, and storytelling brio of the studio's early-1990s animation renaissance (Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King) or pretty much anything by Pixar". Betsy Sharkey, formerly of the Los Angeles Times, gave the film a positive review claiming: "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."

Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert gave the film three out of four stars and admired Disney's step back to traditional animation, writing, "No 3-D! No glasses! No extra ticket charge! No frantic frenzies of meaningless action! And…good gravy! A story! Characters! A plot! This is what classic animation once was like!", but stated that the film "inspires memories of Disney's Golden Age it doesn't quite live up to, as I've said, but it's spritely and high-spirited, and will allow kids to enjoy it without visually assaulting them." S. Jhoanna Robledo of Common Sense Media gave the film three out of five stars, writing, "First African-American Disney princess is a good role model". Saint Bryan of the NBC-TV Seattle praised the film and called it "The Best Disney Movie Since The Lion King".

Upon its release, the film created controversy among some Christians over its use of Louisiana Voodoo as a plot device. Christianity Today's review of the film cited its sexual undertones and use of voodoo, arguing that the scenes with Dr. Facilier and his "friends on the other side" contain many horror elements and that young children might be frightened by the film. The film's treatment of Louisiana voodoo as a type of magic instead of a religion also drew criticism from non-Christian factions.

On its limited day release, the film grossed $263,890 at two theatres and grossed $786,190 its opening weekend. On its opening day in wide release, the film grossed $7 million at 3,434 theatres. It went on to gross $24.2 million over the opening weekend averaging $7,050 per theatre, ranking at #1 for the weekend, and making it the highest-grossing start to date for an animated movie in December, a record previously held by Beavis and Butt-Head Do America. The film went on to gross $104.4 million in the United States and Canada, and $271 million worldwide, making it a box office success, and became the fifth-highest-grossing animated film of 2009. While the film out-grossed Disney's more recent hand-drawn films such as The Emperor's New Groove, Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Treasure Planet, Brother Bear, and Home on the Range, it was less auspicious than the animated films from Walt Disney Animation Studios' 1990s heyday, despite having a similar successful start compared to The Little Mermaid. Disney animator Tom Sito compared the film's box office performance to that of The Great Mouse Detective (1986), which was a step up from the theatrical run of the 1985 box office bomb The Black Cauldron. It can be considered that the film, despite having been a box office hit in general, was unexpectedly overshadowed by the release of James Cameron’s Avatar a week later after its release.

Budget $105 million

Box office $271 million

My Review

Like most of the other reviewers here, I am a massive Disney fan at 17. Not only growing up on movies like Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King, which are not only two of my favourite Disney movies but two of my favourite movies ever, but also watching shows like Darkwing Duck, Talespin, DuckTales and The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh and singing along to their theme tunes. From my earliest memories as a child, I remembered wanting to be a mermaid with Ariel, being spellbound by The Circle of Life, wanting to fly on a magic carpet with Aladdin, wanting to stay in Neverland with Peter Pan, getting all nostalgic whenever I heard When You Wish Upon a Star, singing The Bare Neccessities at the top of my lungs (still do it actually), wanting to hug Quasimodo as he cried over Esmeralda, crying at Bambi's mother's death, being scared to death by Ursula's laugh and laughing at the witty banter between Prince John and Sir Hiss. The Princess and the Frog mayn't be the best Disney movie of the lot, but it is for me the best Disney film of the last decade. This is coming from someone who loved Emperor's New Groove, Lilo and Stitch and Fantasia 2000, but was disappointed in Home on the Range and save a few exceptions (ie. Bambi 2) most of the sequels.

One thing that springs to mind is the quality of the animation. I know some have complained of it being Saturday morning cartoon standard or direct to video sequel quality, but I found it absolutely stunning. The bayou scenes especially were exquisitely rendered and gave the film a warm richness, reminding me slightly of the Kiss The Girl scene from The Little Mermaid, and the backgrounds and landscapes reminded me of the splendour of the animation in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, a very underrated Disney film. The characters were also very well drawn, Tiana looking like a traditional princess and Dr Facilier looking as suave and charismatic as he sounds. The animation here is better than that of Titanic: The Animated Movie (which I am mentioning because that ripped off Beauty and the Beast and Cinderella, all but to name a few) and The Return of Jafar, both of which had in my opinion sloppy art direction. I know parents may complain of the voodoo scenes being inappropriate perhaps, but they were for me very vibrantly animated, intoxicating and both fun and scary.

Another complaint I read was the songs being generic and forgettable. Can I disagree here? I am not trying to say people who say that are wrong, no, no, no, what I am saying is that I liked them. I do admit I am not a Randy Newman fan but I loved his songs for Cats Don't Dance and thought I will give Newman a chance. The tunes here are appropriately jazzy and upbeat, maybe not as memorable as the beautiful music of Beauty and the Beast, the rousing Lion King numbers, the lyrical melodies of Sleeping Beauty or the haunting and almost operatic ones of Hunchback ('Hellfire' never fails to give me goose bumps), but goodness aren't they an improvement on Home on the Range? The only song I remember from that film, which I found disappointingly average despite the voice cast and Alan Menken, was Slim's yodel song and that was for the use of William Tell and Ode To Joy. I loved the sinister yet upbeat tone of Friends on the Other Side, the tenderness of Ma Belle Evangeline, the fun of Dig a Little Deeper and the celebratory mood of Down in New Orleans. I also feel Anika Noni Rose has a strong, powerful, beautiful singing voice that I felt could've been used even more.

The story is obviously enhanced and modernised to a New Orleans setting, I do agree there are some moments in the film that drag, but the film took a simple fairy tale, enhanced it and on the whole made a charming and likable film out of it, and that isn't easy to do. The scripting isn't bad either, there are no lame pop culture references like there were in Doogal, and look how awful that was, and while maybe not as intelligent as films like Watership Down, there are some funny and moving moments. And I loved the characters. Both Tiana and Naveen have flaws (Tiana being ambitious and Naveen being spoilt), but they also have their charm and avoided being completely clichéd thanks to how they were animated, their motives in the film and the enthusiasm of Anika Noni Rose and Bruno Campos (nobody is perfect). Dr Facilier is a great villain, suave, charismatic yet menacing, he mayn't be the best of the lot, not being as complex as Frollo, as calculating as Maleficent, as funny as Ratigan or as scary as Ursula, he definitely leaves an impression, and Keith David's melodious and malevolent voice was perfect. Louis, the trumpet-playing alligator is a fun character, same with Charlotte who could have been clichéd but had some depth to her, while Ray the Cajun firefly is one of the better characters of the movie, being both funny and charming. It also helps he is voiced with real exuberance and sensitivity by the legendary Jim Cummings. His death I think is shocking and heart-rending, and Dr Facilier being dragged to the graveyard was suitably creepy.

Overall, not the best Disney movie out there, but it is great, one of the better films of theirs to come out in recent years. 10/10

{I've legit only just realised that Facilier's shadow turns the wallpaper into skull and cross bones; like that's amazing}

{I love all the songs in this film so, like Encanto, I shall rank them in order to least favourite to favourite}

{I'll honourably mention 'Never Knew I Needed' by Ne-Yo becuase it was in the end credit scene not the movie itself. It's not a bad song, it's just I don't really listen to Ne-Yo, but I guess I can mark it as #8}.

{#7 - 'Ma Belle Evangeline' - A nice love song, but in comparison to the other songs it's quite forgettable. But the part where Naveen and Tiana are dancing under the water it gives me major Paul McCartney 'We All Stand Together' vibes}

{#6 - 'Gonna Take You There' - I don't have anything against Ray, it's just his songs aren't the best in this film. But this is a good head bobber when it appears}

{#5 - 'Down In New Orleans' - A jazzy intro to an amazing movie, I like Randy Newman's music}

{#4 - 'When We're Human' - I'll admit that I do find it a little forgettable, buuuut when it appears it reminds me of how good it actually was, sooooo...}

{#3 - 'Almost There' - Anika Noni Rose has got some pipes, like for a cliche protagonist dream song it's pretty good. Along with some good visuals}

{#2 - 'Friends On The Other Side' - I mean come on... it's a VILLAIN song. That and Keith David plays such a good slippery, connivng, sinister character. Dr Facilier is such an underrated villain. Especially the fact that this was the first villain song Disney did since 'Hellfire', that's saying a lot!}

{#1 - 'Dig A Little Deeper' - What else is there to say... this song is one of the best Disney songs, it's criminally underrated!}

{However though, there was this album, that is literally impossible to find, that features songs that were taken out of the film, but the cast still sung anyway. It's called Bayou Boogie, if I recall. And honestly there's a bunch of good songs on there that failed to get in the film. If you type it in Youtube a playlist will come up; but I'll post my 3 favourite ones on here. Unsurprisingly they are the 3 songs that Keith David/Dr Faciler sing, well would have sung}.

{#3 - 'Shadow Man'}

{#2 - 'Do What I Wanna Do'}

{#1 - 'Love Is A Magical Mystery'}

{I'll just put a link to the playlist here}

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYWMu7GJwQU&list=PLZEd8Yp94eCGvsDYO9nfRLslumfwF8nZy