I watched The Princess And The Frog this weekend.

I must say the visuals are stunning. The animation is as good as it gets, and the art direction is fabulous. I think the highlights are the animation of Charlotte, Louis and Dr. Facilier. Just brilliant.

About the story, I believe we should base our thoughts on the fact this is a typical "Disney princess movie". Thus, we really get what it is expected from this kind of movie: happy ending, victory of virtue, a defeated villain, etc.

Honestly I don't see that as a problem: it is a "contract" made between Disney and the public. The moviegoer knows, when entering the theater, that it's a "princess movie". Everyone knows that it will have a happy ending, but the question is how things happen in order to end like this. When deciding which movie they're gonna watch, the decision implies what the spectator wants to see: comedy, horror, action, sci-fi, princess-movie.

I believe it's more or less like the Twilight Saga. I didn't watch it because I'm really not interested in that particular contract. Nevertheless, I believe it delivers what it promises. If it didn't, it wouldn't cause this huge frenzy.

And that's why I think The Princess And The Frog is a great movie.

Inside this "princess movie" thing, Disney artists made some bold decisions. The most talked about is the choice for a black princess, and I really liked the approach to the death of a comic-relief character. So I think Disney succeeded in making a really good movie within the constraints.

I also liked the Brazilian dubbing. The highlight was the redneck family, which was hilariously adapted to Brazil. The only problem, IMHO, was the choice of dubbing the songs. I don't think it was cool to make Brazilian versions of New Orleans Jazz. I'll have to wait for the DVD to listen to the original version, since there are no subtitled copies on local theaters.