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The Princess and The Frog: Irish premiere

From Image.net

I was lucky enough to attend the Irish premiere of Disney’s latest animated movie release, The Princess and The Frog. It took place on 27th January last in the Savoy cinema. Everything was looking pretty outside with a green carpet for the ‘special guests’ including Anika Noni Rose who is the voice of Tiana, directors Ron Clements and John Musker, producer Peter Del Vecho and supervising animator, Andreas Deja, all pictured above. The whole lobby of the Savoy looked fabulous with pink and green everywhere, including pink drapes over the doors into the cinema screen. To say the place was jammed full of kids inside is an understatement. At one point they had to ask people to bunch up along the rows and put smaller kids on laps so that more people could sit down. I have a feeling some people were sneaking small ones in without tickets because there were way more people than there should have been. But once seating was sorted as much as possible, the special guests were introduced to say a few words and the movie began to much excitement from the young audience.

Caitlin Murray at the Irish Premiere of Disneys 'The Princess and The Frog' in the Savoy cinema. Image from Image.net.

The film itself tells the tale of Tiana, a little girl who grows up in New Orleans with hard working parents. She grows up to believe in the power of hard work and persistence and not in fairy tales and magic so when she meets a talking frog who asks her to kiss him…it is a turning point in her young life and the beginning of a crazy adventure in the bayous of New Orleans.

The Princess and The Frog is a definite return to the old style 2D animation of earlier Disney movies. The story itself reminded me of a ‘Beauty and the Beast’ or ‘Hunchback of Notre Dame’ type love story and the animation is -obviously- reminiscent of that era too. There was lots of singing and dancing in it but no big numbers that the kids were likely to be singing in the way home. The best number was ‘Dig A Little Deeper’ sung by Mama Odie.

The film shows a beautiful animated version of New Orleans along with the expected true love story. There are the wonderful characters of Ray the firefly, Mama Odie, Facilier – the bad guy! And of course the trumpet playing croc, Louie.

Myself and my sister both thoroughly enjoyed The Princess and The Frog as did all of the young kids there by the amount of clapping at the end of it. It’s a lovely, sweet and funny film. Unfortunately for me, it was missing a certain magical quality that earlier films have had and certainly not as funny as I know Disney can be. Most Disney films have an attraction for both young and old but this one I feel, is definitely mostly for the kids. I enjoyed The Princess and The Frog but I’m pretty sure it’s not one I’ll be rushing to watch over and over again.

Thank you so much to Movies.ie for the tickets to see The Princess and The Frog premiere and to Image.net for the photos.