THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG (2009, Blu-ray released March 16, 2010 – MSRP $44.99)

It took a couple of viewings but I think I finally “get” The Princess and The Frog, Disney‘s mostly triumphant return to the realm of the 2D, hand drawn animated feature. And after all is said and done, despite the qualities that some might consider weaknesses in the film, I think it’s a remarkable work and worth seeing.

The first time I sat down to watch The Princess and The Frog, it really didn’t work for me. The film just seemed long and unbalanced, with poorly placed attempts at humour and far too much singing. But, to be fair I wasn’t really able to give it a proper shot. You see, I was suffering a major allergy meltdown and had taken a couple of antihistamine tablets that were, unbeknownst to me until later, of the very-sleepy variety. And when those frogs and princesses started a-singing, I start a-snoring. Bad news. So I gave it a second shot. And, I’ve got to tell you, I thought it really worked on a lot of levels!

I feel like The Princess and The Frog could still use an edit and would benefit greatly from having fewer musical interludes. But there is a whole lot to like here. Chief among which is the incredible artwork and the best, most inspired and dynamic 2D, hand-drawn animation the studio has produced in decades! The painted backgrounds in particular are stunning! And aside from just being nice to look at, they provide the glue which allows the two “sections” of the film to cohere – the pre-frog segments which deal primarily with human characters, with a typical Disney-princess feel, and the post-frog-kiss scenes which play more like short Looney Tunes episodes. I almost enjoy both sections of the film better on their own merit than as part of the same film but I have a feeling that I’ve never truly appreciated the combination of straight-up human characters with silly cartoon elements (singing candelabras, animals, sea life etc…) These films really aren’t made for me, though. And that should be fairly obvious on the surface. This is a movie tailor-made for my niece and little girls like her. And as far as she’s concerned, it’s perfect.

And speaking of perfect, The Princess and The Frog is as close as a Blu-ray can come to it in the image department. That’s right, the good folks over at Disney have delivered another reference-quality disc that you’ll be proud to use to show off your home theatre set-up. The 2D animation looks amazing in the near-flawless encode, exhibiting incredible amounts of detail, brilliant, spot-on colour and deep blacks with nary a hint of the banding and aliasing that can typically crop up in these animated releases. And speaking of perfection, the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 comes as close as possible to offering up a flawless audio experience as home video has ever presented!

Any fan, whether young, old or cinephile will find something to like in the special features department of this Blu-ray release. In addition to the requisite commentary track (excellent!), collection of “making of” featurettes and documentaries (also excellent!) and deleted scenes (mostly excellent but not necessary viewing), you’ll find my favourite feature – the “Work-in-progress” track which allows you to view the whole film as a series of pencil drawings and test animation in a “picture-in-picture” frame while the main feature plays. Awesome! My only complaint is that you can’t engage the commentary track while the PIP is active. Ah well, can’t have your cake and eat it too, right? The disc is rounded out by a music video, an extensive art gallery, the interactive “Princess Portraits” game for the kids, a DVD and a digital copy of the film.

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