- I’m pretty sure Prince Naveen and Prince Eric have the same hairstylist.
- I liked Tiana in general as a go-getter, stick-to-it kind of girl who has dreams and aspirations and who works herself silly to achieve them. She’s an aspiring entrepreneur trying to make a better life for herself doing what she loves. Fabulous! But then Prince Naveen happens on the scene and he’s presented as a pretty huge gold-digging douche right from the beginning, with very few redeeming qualities. Tiana justifiably finds him obnoxious. And yet… he chops a bunch of vegetables one night and this is the path to redemption and love? It’s completely understandable for him to fall in love with someone competent and generally wonderful like her, but what exactly is he bringing to the table? Tiana goes from being someone with a clearly defined goal with clearly defined steps to achieving that goal, to someone who suddenly isn’t as interested in that goal unless Naveen is there at her side to help out. Um… no.
My main sticking point here is that Naveen, likely raised by servants and by his own admission lacking in any kind of life skills, is incompetent and somehow it becomes Tiana’s responsibility to teach him how to be a functional adult. I’m so glad that we’re reinforcing the idea that it’s okay to be a manchild because it will ultimately be your wife’s job to turn you into a productive member of society. Awesome!
- Also, Naveen sounds nearly identical to Pepe the King Prawn from the Muppet Show, although apparently it’s not the same actor.
- I think my favourite moment was when Louis was recounting his tragic tale of not being able to play jazz trumpet on a river boat. The shot of him glancing side to side with a look of joy on his face, followed by everyone else running away in terror, was priceless.
- I’ll be surprised if there isn’t at least minor annoyance on behalf of the Cajun community for being depicted as fireflies straight out of Deliverance.
- Speaking of which, I bet Ray has a “Cajun Dialect for Actors” cassette tape kicking around somewhere.
- The songs were not good. I don’t expect to hear kids singing these songs ten years from now the way you still hear people singing songs from Disney’s early 1990s glory era.
- Dr. Facilier was entertaining in a 1973, Live and Let Die, are-these-sorts-of-depictions-of-voodoo-still-okay? kind of way. I enjoyed how his shadow operated independently of his physical body and I enjoyed the shadows of the various spirits he’d call forth. All the animation in these sequences was quite spectacular.
- As it occasionally happens, I think I enjoyed the closing credits more than the actual movie.
The Princess and the Frog
Not destined to be one of Disney’s classics.
IMDB Plot Synopsis A fairy tale set in Jazz Age-era New Orleans and centered on a young girl named Princess Tiana and her fateful kiss with a frog prince who desperately wants to be human again.