The Princess and the Frog (Single Disc Widescreen)

CG Animation is a beautiful thing - it's given animation permission to explore themes that it couldn't before, like non-musical stories. Disney Traditional still hasn't gotten that in their thick skulls, and this movie makes many of same mistakes they were making post-Lion King (a politically correct voodoo priestess?! C'mon!). But the movie is no less enjoyable; a great tale about balancing ambitions with character. It contains characters with strong dreams to risk, in addition to a villian worthy of fear (Parents, it may be rated G, but there are some shocking moments in the graveyard). As an aside, there are fantastic animation moments, worthy of the name Disney contained in 3 of the songs. During these sequences, you "leave" the story for a moment, enjoy it, and when you're back you'll say to yourself, "Oh yeah, we left off here". While watching this movie, remind yourself that those lines you're seeing (which define the characters) are actually the artists'own marks (albeit the clean-up artist, but the movement is straight from the animator) - and that, my friends, is a privilege.

me encanta esta pelicula... me parece muy hermosa y su musica tambien.. el dvd muy bueno. aunque le falto mas material extra para ver... o simplemente sacar una edicion especial dos disco para esta pelicula no hubiese sido mala idea

This movie was cute and fun. It was well done. It was surprising how it all unfolded.

Why did a movie about a black princess have to be emeshed in a social and polictical framework? This movie attempted to capture black culture and failed miserably. This movie is not represenative of the black experience for most. Only people with roots in the creole culture might relate to this movie but that is only a fraction of the African American experience. What happened to the fantasy framework of all the other Disney princess movies? Film makers persist in portraying African Americans steeped in the stereotypes of the antebellum south. The very over played setting of The black servant's child playing with the rich white plantation owners daughter needs to be put to rest. The south, the massa/servant relationship, the dixieland music, the gumbo, the dialect, the voodoo, the caricatures, the prince, of course, couldn't be a black male to save the black princess and other stereotypes galore made for an incredibly disappointing cinema experience and disappointed with Disney --again. Blacks have progressed eons beyond the black slave/servant image ..just look around in the real world and step outside of racist stereotypics perceptions of black people in the USA . Stop tying and portraying African Americans to slavery and as servants, gangsters and criminals.

One of my daughter's favorite movies and it is pretty entertaining for adults. Highly recommend.

I ordered this as a gift for my best friend, price was good, shipping time was perfect! Thank You!

Disney's "The Princess and the Frog" isn't one of the absolute best films in Disney's 70-plus year legacy of animated movie-making, it does stand up as one of the better ones. I wouldn't put it in the same league as Beauty and the Beast, for example... I would probably put it roughly on par with (or just slightly below) Aladdin. But regardless of how good the movie is (and it is good), it is an important film for both Disney and fans of animation alike. When it was revealed that Home on the Range would be Disney's last hand-drawn flick due to the increasing popularity of CG movies (and thus, the decreasing popularity of 2D), many fans of the Disney classics, including myself, were more than a little disappointed, to say the least. Disney had built their legacy by making fairy tale masterpieces of traditional hand-drawn animation, and Home on the Range hardly qualified as "masterpiece" material. It was quite a downer to see that legacy end on such a decidedly average note - it just felt incomplete. After five long years and three non-Pixar CG films that failed to set the world ablaze (Chicken Little, Meet the Robinsons, and Bolt), Disney has gone back to their roots and realized what made them great in the first place. And right from the get go, there is an air of distinction about the movie: For starters, it's set in New Orleans in the 1920s, hardly the sort of European setting one would expect from a fairy tale. Oh, and Disney finally has their first black princess. Yes, after decades of Caucasian princesses, then dabbling a bit with other cultures (Native Americans with Pocahontas, Asians in Mulan, and even the Hawaiian culture in Lilo & Stitch), Disney has crafted a hard-working all-American woman for their newest princess - and a woman of color at that. Sometimes culture integration like this can feel forced or pandering (the latter comes to mind in the case of Pocahontas), but the story in The Princess and the Frog is written for the characters rather than the other way around. The previews for the movie set the stage pretty well - everyone knows how the fairy tale story of The Princess and the Frog ends - she kisses the frog and he becomes human. Disney sets up the premise in this movie so that when our heroine kisses the frog, she turns into a frog herself, and the bulk of the movie features the two of them learning to work together to find their way back to being human. The villain in the film that sets the whole thing in motion is a voodoo doctor named Facilier, often referred to as "the shadow man" for his association with the dark arts. Of course, the voodoo magic performed in The Princess and the Frog has practically no relation to actual voodoo practices, but it's a novel attempt to try and make a villain with unearthly powers that also fits the New Orleans setting. And when he gets his comeuppance at the end of the film (as pretty much all Disney villains do), it's quite possibly the most satisfying dispatch Disney has come up with to date. Naturally, there are some elements that have been "Disneyed up" to make the movie more palatable to the family audience - racism is only touched on ever so lightly and only in the briefest of moments, and it would have been VERY prevalent in the 1920's, particularly in the south. There isn't even the slightest bit of outrage by anyone in the movie at the concept of the rich white daughter of the cotton baron potentially marrying a dark-skinned prince. Of course, the movie is a somewhat modernized re-telling of a fairy tale, and thus is not meant to be a wholly accurate portrayal of America's history, so it really doesn't negatively impact the movie. It just takes a wee bit more suspension of disbelief from those of us who are familiar with America's past (and, unfortunately, the present) than it would for a child. At the other end of the spectrum, however, Disney has no problem making jabs at the stupid, bumbling "rednecks" in the film. Really, if there's anything that disappoints about the movie, it's the pacing. It moves a little too quickly from one perilous situation to the next - our heroes get out of the proverbial frying pan and into the fire in such rapid sequence, there's sometimes too little down time between the action scenes. In the times Disney does break up the action, it often does so by returning to another hallmark of the great Disney classics - high-energy musical numbers. The music this time around is a eclectic mix of Jazz, Gospel, Cajun and other southern styles. The music and lyrics are written by Randy Newman, and they have his trademark style, for better or worse. I'm not a big fan of his music, but I have to admit his style of composition is a perfect fit for the film, and so I was able to enjoy it (also because although he wrote the music, he doesn't sing it). Some of the songs are much weaker than others and seem more like filler ("When We're Human" comes to mind), but most of them are quite well-written and completely appropriate for the movie. The Princess and the Frog is a strong addition to the Disney lineup, and whether you're a die-hard Disney collector, a fan of animation in general, or just want to have a good time watching a movie, I would pretty much be able to recommend this movie to just about anybody. I purchased the Blu-ray + DVD combo pack of the movie. Disney has been releasing it's Blu-ray movies this way for a while now, and I personally think it's a fantastic idea. People with Blu-ray players may wonder why they would need or even want a DVD included, but there are some valid reasons: First and foremost, portable DVD players are fairly inexpensive nowadays, so having a Blu-ray disc for the home theater and a DVD for the kids to watch in the car might be a pretty solid deal for parents. Likewise, if you have a Blu-ray player, but maybe your friends don't, you'd still be able to loan them the DVD copy if they want to watch the movie. Secondly, if you don't yet HAVE a Blu-ray player, but you are considering getting one, you may want to pick up the combo pack because you'll be able to watch the DVD now, and then when you get the Blu-ray player, you'll already have the disc to watch it in high definition - you won't have to "re-buy" or "double-dip" or whatever the kids are calling it these days. And of course, it is also available as a single-disc Blu-ray as well, if you don't want to spend the extra few dollars to get the Blu-ray + DVD bundle.

The Princess and the Frog is a superbly animated, imaginative family film that shows what Disney can still accomplish with good old 2-D, hand drawn animation to tell a powerful and emotional story. The plot moves along at a very good pace yet there's still room for plenty of character development; and the decisions of which actor or actress should voice which part on screen were thoughtfully made. Indeed, this movie grabs your attention right away and it never lets go until the final frame--this is all THAT good. The music by Randy Newman and others is excellent; and when the actors voicing the characters sing, they sing flawlessly, too. When the action starts, we meet rather young childhood friends Charlotte (voiced by Breanna Brooks) and Tiana (voiced by Elizabeth M. Dampier) nearly spellbound as they listen once again to Tiana's seamstress mother Eudora (Oprah Winfrey) tell the story of how a frog was turned into a handsome prince when a young woman kissed it. Charlotte, who comes from wealth, wants to make that fantasy a reality while Tiana chooses the more traditional route of hard work to get ahead, a choice practically made for her since she comes from a poor African-American family in New Orleans where this all takes place. However, Tiana learns the importance of love through her parents; money isn't everything. Tiana also wants to open her own restaurant just like her father always wanted to but never had the money to actually do. And there's more to the plot that I can tell you without giving too much away! One year as Mari Gras approaches, Prince Naveen of Maldonia (voiced by Bruno Campos) comes to New Orleans with his personal assistant Lawrence (voiced by Peter Bartlett). Prince Naveen is soon tricked into becoming a frog by the evil Dr. Facilier (voiced by Keith David) who wants to keep the Prince a frog so that he can have a grown up Charlotte (now voiced by Jennifer Cody) marry Lawrence who is magically made to look like the Prince--and then Dr. Facilier can control all of New Orleans with his buddies "from the other side." Add to this a huge New Orleans party thrown by Charlotte's "Big Daddy" (voiced by John Goodman); a trumpet playing crocodile named Louis (voiced by Michael-Leon Wooley); a Cajun firefly named Ray (voiced by Jim Cummings) and an elderly blind woman named Mama Odie (voiced by Jenifer Lewis) who weaves magical spells to do good from her home in the bayou and you've got one heck of a movie. There's plenty of suspense, too! Will Charlotte be fooled into marrying Lawrence? What happens when the grown up Tiana (now voiced by Anika Noni Rose) kisses Prince Naveen after he's turned into a frog by Dr. Facilier? Will Tiana and Prince Naveen ever achieve happiness when up against Dr. Facilier and his evil buddies--and how could they do it as mere frogs? No spoilers here--watch and find out! The DVD comes with deleted scenes; and I also liked the music video for "Never Knew I Needed," one of the major songs in the film performed by Ne-Yo. The Princess and the Frog is a remarkable comeback for traditional animation at Disney and that's grand. This is a story with characters that are real--even the good people have their flaws and no one is portrayed as perfect. I highly recommend this movie as a fine family film although I must admit that there are a small number of scenes that could be somewhat scary for very young children. In addition, fans of Disney movies and animation in general would do well to add this to their collections.

My 2 yr old is not a big tv person but she is quickly coming to love the princesses and their stories

While I enjoyed some of the characters (the frazzled firefly, Tiana, the rich girl), this was not my favorite Disney movie. A little scary with all the voodooisms, and no memorable song. It was funny at times, and a little bit romantic, although it never quite explained why Tiana fell in love with the Prince. Oh well. I may be getting too old to expect much from cartoons. Nice to see a Black princess though.