Having seemingly fully committed to computer generated animation, Disney unexpectedly made a return to its roots with their first hand-drawn animated feature since 2004’s Home on the Range. The decision came, surprisingly, from Disney’s recently installed president and chief creative officer, Ed Catmull and John Lasseter, both formerly of Pixar (recently bought by Disney) who had helped to pioneer the feature length CGI animated film. They hired directors Ron Clements and John Musker, who had made The Great Mouse Detective (1986), The Little Mermaid (1989), Aladdin (1992), Hercules (1997), and Treasure Planet (2002) for Disney, and had to track down and re-employ many animators who had left the company when the tradition hand-drawn unit was closed down.

The plot is partly inspired by E.D. Baker’s 2002 novel The Frog Princess (the film was originally announced under that title before being changed to The Princess and the Frog) which in turn was based on the fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm. The story is transplanted to an appealing “Roaring Twenties” New Orleans where teenage waitress Tiana (voiced by Anika Noni Rose) dreams of opening her own restaurant. One day, the arrogant Naveen (Bruno Campos), prince of Maldonia, arrives in New Orleans after his parents cut him off from the family fortune, hoping to recoup his losses by marrying the wealthy Charlotte La Bouff (Jennifer Cody), Tiana’s best friend. Charlotte’s father Eli “Big Daddy” La Bouff (John Goodman) throws a masquerade ball in Naveen’s honour, and Charlotte hires Tiana to cater, earning her enough money to buy a run-down mill she plans to convert into her restaurant, though the deal falls through. But Naveen and his valet Lawrence (Peter Bartlett) fall afoul of local voodoo priest Dr Facilier (Keith David) who transforms Naveen into a frog and Lawrence into Naveen’s doppelganger, planning to use the disguised Lawrence to marry Charlotte so that he can access the La Bouff fortune and estate. The transformed Naveen meets Tiana and, believing her to be a princess, asks for her to kiss him to break Facilier’s spell by kissing him. Tiana agrees after persuading Naveen to help finance her restaurant but because she’s not a princess, the spell is cast on her too, turning her into a frog as well. Assisted by a friendly, jazz trumpeter alligator named Louis (Michael-Leon Wooley) and a Cajun firefly named Ray (Jim Cummings), and taking advice from voodoo priestess Mama Odie (Jenifer Lewis), Tiana determines to restore herself and Naveen and find a way to realise her dream of being a restaurateur.

There was much hype from Disney about Tiana being the company’s first “princess of colour” though the plot actually revolves around the fact that she’s not actually a princess at all (at least not until the end) and where this claim leaves Jasmine (from Aladdin), Pocahontas or Mulan isn’t at all clear. Though the company doubtless had good intentions, they caused some controversy with their depiction of voodoo, mainly among Christians, and were chastised for its attempts to sanitise the black experience in “Jazz Age” New Orleans and the fact that Tiana still has to fall in love with a white hero.

And for all its surface freshness and its undoubtedly stunning animation – Disney may have taken a break from traditional 2D animation but their rehired staff certainly knew how to recapture former glories – it’s still a very formulaic film. There’s really not enough story to justify its longer than usual running time of 97 minutes (even if ten of those are reserved for the end credits) and what little there is, is something that we’ve seen far too many times before already. When Naveen and Louis first meet for example it becomes The Jungle Book (1967) with Louis undoubtedly a fantastic character but nonetheless a poor standard for Baloo. That’s not to say that the film is a complete write off – very far from it. It looks magnificent and has a great score mixing catchy Randy Newman songs with New Orleans jazz. As well as marking a return to traditional animation The Princess and the Frog was also the first of Disney’s films for many years to adopt the Broadway musical approach that had served them so well during their renaissance years of the 80s and 90s.

It’s the characters that make it fun even if poor Tiana is rather upstaged by the cast of eccentrics around her, never quite making that much of an impact in her own film. Doctor Facilier is a wonderful creation. marvellously played by Keith, but one not without problems. He is perhaps Disney’s most memorable villain in many a long year, but he was the target for much of the ire from Christian commentators who were appalled by the sexual undertones of his scenes and the more horrific moments in general something unusual in a Disney animation. Ironically, once Tiana is transformed into a frog, that’s when the writers are able to find something for her to do and the frenetic pace of the early scenes settles down and we get a more enjoyable film. Interestingly, Naveen and Tiana’s relationship seems to owe something to the similar relationship between Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn’s characters in The African Queen (1951).

There’s a pointless and unnecessary diversion with a trio of bayou hunters that adds nothing to the plot, but it’s easy enough to overlook in an otherwise impressively mounted film. It’s one not afraid to tackle – albeit gently and not terribly persuasively perhaps – issues of inequality, privilege and poverty, none of which went far enough for many and too far for some. It’s often very funny but it avoids Musker and Clements’ tendency to go for laughs with period inappropriate pop culture references (see Aladdin in particular) and is all the better for that. All of this goes some way to overcoming problems with the thinness of the plot and the predictability of it all. There’s a sentimental death scene near the end and some mystical mumbo jumbo that sets everything right(ish) again (what do you mean spoiler? This is Disney, how did you think it was going to end?) And seeing that gorgeous Disney style once again recreated for the screen is nothing short of a joy.

The Princess and the Frog made a decent splash at the box office and well it might, topping the US charts for its opening weekend and proving far more financially successful than any of Disney’s hand-drawn films of the 2000s. But it didn’t do as well as the 80s and 90s “Renaissance” films (it was iup against James Cameron’s box office behemoth Avatar for much of its run) and although its modest success suggested that there was still an eager audience for this sort of animation and that it could have marked the start of a second “Renaissance” for the form, it was not to be. Disney would return to hand drawn animation again in 2011 with Winnie the Pooh but plans to adapt Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen into a hand drawn animated epic changed and the film became this CG animated Frozen (2013) instead. At the time of writing (early 2024) Winnie the Pooh remains their last traditional animated feature film.