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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Princess & the Frog, The

EMAILPRINTWalt Disney Pictures

Princess & the Frog, The reviews
73
7.7 User Score:

Generally favorable reviews

Based on 29 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

Based on 47 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info

Genre(s): Animation  |  Family/Kids  |  Fantasy  |  Musical  |  Romance

Written by: Ron Clements
John Musker

Directed by: Ron Clements
John Musker

Release Date:
Theatrical: November 25, 2009
DVD: March 16, 2010

Running Time: 97 minutes, Color

Origin: USA

Summary

RATING: G for General Audiences

Starring Anika Noni Rose, Terrence Howard, John Goodman, Keith David, Jim Cummings, Jenifer Lewis, and Oprah Winfrey

The Princess and the Frog is a modern twist on a classic tale, featuring a beautiful girl named Tiana, a frog prince who desperately wants to be human again, and a fateful kiss that leads them both on a hilarious adventure through the mystical bayous of Louisiana. (Walt Disney Pictures)

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

What matters is that Tiana triumphs as both a girl and a frog, that dreams are fulfilled, wrongs are righted, love prevails, and music unites not only a princess and a frog but also kids and grown-ups.

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100

Time Richard Corliss

In an amazing year for animation, The Princess and the Frog is up at the top. Go on, give it a big kiss.

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100

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

The Princess and the Frog invite viewers to see the world as a lively, mixed-up, even confounding place, to recognize essential parts of ourselves in what we see, and to say: This is what we look like.

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100

San Francisco Chronicle Amy Biancolli

The animation, sparkling and graceful, also ranks as the studio's best traditional work in ages.

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88

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Randy Newman's songs are catchy and are effective within the movie's context, but I can't see any of them having "legs" beyond the screen the way tunes from the earlier animated musicals did.

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88

New Orleans Times-Picayune Mike Scott

Local viewers will be tickled by the wealth of New Orleans details in the production. One of the best just might be in the film's music.

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88

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

The film billed as the first Disney animation to boast an African American "princess" is really about a resourceful bootstrapper in New Orleans, a young woman allergic to the fairy-tale pap spoon-fed to young girls.

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88

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Two things keep the film off Disney's top shelf. First, Naveen is a dull hero; his good-natured vanity isn't engaging until late in the story. Second, Newman's songs are less bland than usual but no more memorable.

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83

Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan

It's no "Fantasia" or "Sleeping Beauty," but it's no "The Rescuers Down Under," either.

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83

The Onion (A.V. Club) Tasha Robinson

Disney’s triumphant return to hand-drawn 2-D animation still holds an awful lot of familiar, comfort-food charm.

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80

Slate Dan Kois

Represents a course-correction for Disney's multibillion-dollar princess franchise: It attempts to celebrate the virtues of hard work and pluck, even if the movie itself can feel at times like a lesson rather than an enchantment.

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80

Empire Helen O'Hara

Exactly as good as Musker and Clements’ earlier efforts, so a return to the form of Disney’s early 1990s classics. The animation is gorgeous, the heroine feisty and the animals amusing -- but this may be too scary for the very small.

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80

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

Marks Disney's rediscovery of a strong narrative loaded with vibrant characters and mind-bending, hilarious situations.

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80

Los Angeles Times Betsy Sharkey

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.

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80

Salon.com Mary Elizabeth Williams

The sweetest, most sincere romantic comedy to come along in ages, and a luminous love letter to a great American city.

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78

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

It's Disney's best traditionally animated outing in ages.

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75

USA Today Claudia Puig

Emphasizes backing up wishes with hard work. That proviso is a thoughtful message for young moviegoers.

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75

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The Princess and the Frog 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.

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75

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Overall, the film is not quite up to "Aladdin" and "The Little Mermaid" from the same directing team of Ron Clements and John Musker, not to mention the recent string of masterpieces from Pixar.

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70

Chicago Reader Andrea Gronvall

A welcome return to the Disney tradition of 2-D animation, this lively musical spices up Hans Christian Andersen's "The Frog Prince" by transplanting it to New Orleans in the early 20th century.

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63

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

The movie slam-jams its overpacked story in a frenetic, needlessly complicated manner. It lacks for nothing in setting and atmosphere but comes up short where it counts: the characters.

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63

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

The voice actors are also excellent, especially Michael-Leon Wooley as a bouncy trumpet-playing alligator and Jim Cummings as a lovelorn Cajun firefly.

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63

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

This is minor Disney at best, forgettable at worst.

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60

Time Out New York David Fear

Eye-candy–wise, the film plants a big wet smooch; everything else about this happily-ever-after tale, however, feels like a mere air-kiss.

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60

New York Daily News Joe Neumaier

Part of the problem with "P&F" is that Tiana and Naveen's connection feels superficial.

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50

Village Voice Scott Foundas

The Princess and the Frog is pleasantly, if unmemorably, drawn. But the movie as a whole never approaches 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.

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50

The New York Times Manohla Dargis

It’s not easy being green. But to judge from how this hand-drawn movie addresses, or rather strenuously avoids, race, it is a lot more difficult to be black.

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50

Variety Justin Chang

This cheeky update of a classic fairy tale boasts almost as many talking points as merchandising opportunities.

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50

St. Louis Post-Dispatch Joe Williams

It's a worthy cause and an honorable film, the first full-length Disney cartoon with an African-American heroine. But without a strong story, it's a case of one step forward and two steps back.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 7.7 (out of 10) based on 47 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Scrambled Pixel gave it an8:
You could argue that Disney are slowly becoming a thing of the past in the film industry: they may have their name splattered across tons of live-action movie franchises, animated films and monstrously profitable television shows but Disney just isn’t what it used to be. When I think of Disney I think of the hand-drawn animated films, the ones that everyone of every age recalls when Disney is mentioned. It’s been 73 years since Snow White was released and it’s just as magical now to people as it would have been back then. I think Disney has been polluted by commercialism & money and they’ve lost sight of what made them so great. Their hand-drawn days had seemed all but over six years ago – 2004 was the last fully hand-drawn animated film to come from Disney and that wasn’t exactly the best work they’d done – and with Pixar and Dreamworks proving that CGI animation is a powerful asset for animation a big question lingered: could Disney ever find more success with hand-drawn animation? It came as some surprise when in 2009 Disney released their first fully hand-drawn animated film in over half a decade. They’ve since spoke of wanting to continue making hand-drawn animated films (the end of 2010 will bring a re-imagining of Rapunzel) and I think this sudden inspiration & revitalisation has to be down to The Princess & The Frog – it encapsulates everything that Disney does best. The directors Ron Clements & John Musker probably knew full well that they would have to stick to the Disney formula of storytelling that has worked for so many years. Thankfully because of this day and age & a stronger feeling towards watching the same film with a different name, there was some wiggle room which they both took full advantage of to great effect. The Princess and the Frog is loosely based on the Grimm Brothers’ story The Frog Prince: the film tells the story of Tiana, a girl living in New Orleans who is friends with a princess but doesn’t enjoy the same lifestyle that she does. Tiana doesn’t have the dream of being a princess that much: she’s more focused on doing right by her late father and fulfilling his dream of opening the best restaurant in New Orleans. Money’s a bit of an issue though and in a Of Mice & Men-style fashion Tiana does nothing but work to save up and realise her dream. However, when she is asked by her princess friend to use her cooking talents to make food for the princess’ ball, she finds herself in an awkward position. It seems that Prince Naveem of Maldonia, whose access to money was cut off by his rich parents until he stops acting immature, has come to visit New Orleans and find himself a princess to help him restore his money without any effort. Unfortunately for him however he bumps into voodoo doctor Facilier who convinces Naveem he can make his dreams come true by using voodoo. That isn’t the case, and Naveem gets turned into a frog. He meets Tiana, and asks for a kiss to turn him back into a prince, just like the Frog Prince fairytale says will happen. Tiana reluctantly obliges but the process goes wrong and Tiana becomes a frog too. They have to find a way to revert back to human form before the New Orleans bank sells Tiana’s perfect building that she wants to buy for her restaurant to a higher bidder. There’s a lot more to the story but I don’t want to go into it further or you won’t experience anything new. What I’ve described is a fairly condensed view of only the first part of the story – that tells you that a lot happens in the film. I expected nothing less from Disney, who know how to make a film constantly have something happening. The story is fast-paced, energetic and whilst fairly cliché & stereotypical it’s also more encapsulating because it’s a Disney story that takes the working formula & twists it. It was refreshing to watch a hand-drawn Disney animation that approaches the core story arc from a different angle. I didn’t expect myself to like this film but that came with the territory – I tend not to like films with too much familiarity and Disney have on more than one occasion barely got away with sticking with what works. That definitive charm of the good old-fashioned, hand-drawn animation style is what makes up for the familiar plot lines and The Princess & The Frog has a lot of that charm. What’s more, the New Orleans jazz within the film gives The Princess & The Frog some major flair to the story which makes that feeling of “I’ve seen this before” very much reduced – you can’t not love the New Orleans rhythm. I feel I should mention Randy Newman at this point since the soundtrack is probably the strongest thing in the film. The jazzy blues sound in particular gives the film great character and you’ll definitely find yourself humming some of the tunes. Songs like Down in New Orleans and Almost There are the most distinctive whilst others like Never Knew I Needed and Dig a Little Deeper provide the sentimental, hidden messages every Disney film can’t do without. The setting of New Orleans has an influence on the music style too – the songs are very catchy, there is a lot of jazz, there’s a touch of zydeco for the Bayou setting and an alligator clearly inspired by Louis Armstrong. The Princess & The Frog certainly has a soundtrack worth buying – especially if you love some jazz. Overall Impressions: There’s some stereotyping but it’s not like Disney have never done that before – it’s just more noticeable & less offensive this time. Nonetheless, there’s a charm to The Princess & The Frog that is aided by the jazzy vibe the New Orleans setting brings. The characters presented aren’t too formulaic thanks to the setting and the way the story pans out has enough humour & endearing character to keep even the most sceptical of viewers attentive. Don’t be off put by the princess part: this is not really a girly film – it’s far more focused on creating liveliness, rhythm and highly vibrant & entertaining animations than bringing you a cushy, feminine love story. Disney have certainly proved that hand-drawn animated films aren’t a thing of the past: that Disney magic unilaterally loved is still well & truly alive and The Princess & The Frog does a lot to show this. Just don’t expect Disney to play by it’s own rule-book anymore – if The Princess & The Frog is anything to go by, Disney have found a way of keeping the magic they are best at making whilst keeping things fresh & exciting. This review is from my film and game blog scrambledpixel, google us, we're awesome.

Isaac S gave it an8:
A good comeback for Disney, but it doesn't top any other Disney Classic, but it has the potential to become one.

James H gave it a7:
This movie follows the standard Disney formula. Bad guy is drawn thin and angular - looks the same as all Disney villains. Story completely predictable. The animation, however, looks great and the movie is well done even if it is uninspired. Disney needs to start making original films, like Pixar, instead of movies of fairy tales. Start showing some creativity. The biggest letdown of all, for me anyway, was the Randy Newman soundtrack. The songs were simply not catchy. You won't remember any songs after leaving the theater. Overall a good, solid Disney film.

Sam S gave it a5:
Not even close to the complexity and brilliance of many other recent Disney movies, such as "Up." Boring, predictable plot and ending. Extremely disappointing, especially for a huge Disney fan. Someone must have felt sorry for New Orleans and made a movie featuring the city.

Chris C gave it a6:
This film receives 6 points for the animation alone, which was gorgeous. Unfortunately it doesn't merit much else. Throughout the entire 97-minute screening, there wasn't a single actual joke (it mostly relied on predictable slapstick), and not one particularly catchy or memorable theme tune. I desperately wanted to like it, I really did - but in the end, the writing was just bland and not up to par. Plus it all felt like it was over too soon. Hollow and run-of-the-mill. Now excuse me while I go and weep in sheer disappointment.

Teddi L gave it a9:
Raymond the Cajun Firefly completely stole the show! To me, the entire plot is a vehicle for him. I'm in love with a joyous firefly.

Eggy G gave it a4:
The story concept & setting are interesting....promising fresh approach & view to classic tale. BUT the execution and production value just terrible...below average animation, so-so voice talent, average music, boring dialog...really bring down the whole movie to amateurish quality. Just too bad.

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