The Princess And The Frog

The Princess And The Frog marks Disney's purported return to three of its classic strengths: hand-drawn 2D animation, conventional character-led storytelling and musical numbers. The 2D animation is handsome, recalling 1980/90s Disney fare like Aladdin, The Little Mermaid or Pocahontas, without ever quite scaling the heights of Disney masterpieces like The Jungle Book or Beauty And The Beast. The same can be said of Randy Newman's songs, which bounce along nicely but are forgetten five minutes after you leave the cinema.

The characters are a mixed bunch. "Princess" Tiana is something of a radical, at least compared to most ladies in the Disney heroines stable - she's a hard-working African-American waitress in New Orleans who scorns the idea that if you wish on a star your prince will come and you'll live happily ever after. Tiana prefers to work hard with the goal of eventually owning her own restaurant. When the unlooked for prince does show up, he's a preening popinjay aiming to marry a rich girl to solve his own financial worries. He's also been turned into a frog.

It's a nice set-up, but the supporting cast are retreads of characters we've seen many times from Disney throughout the ages, and their wisecracks won't measure up for a grown-up crowd. Not that there's anything wrong with that: the recent fetish for family films which parents will get as much - or more - out of than their offspring shouldn't doom firmly kid-focussed entertainment to the bargain bin, but the filmmakers may have to be content with a more muted response from adult audiences glutted on the sophisticated storytelling of Pixar.