The Princess and the Frog

IN A novel twist on the frog-prince fable that is as morally driven as it is delightfully nutty, an ambitious young black woman in jazz-era New Orleans kisses a frog, expecting a rich, handsome prince to appear.

Tiana (voiced by Anika Noni Rose from Dreamgirls) hopes her faith in fairy tales will fast-track her dream of owning her own swanky restaurant. Things don't quite go as planned, however, when she turns into a frog.

In a refreshing re-embrace of colourful hand-drawn animation, directors Ron Clements and John Musker - the Disney duo who gave us.

The Little Mermaid (1989), Aladdin (1992), Hercules (1997) and the unfairly trashed Treasure Planet (2002) - deliver a vibrant, funny, uplifting old-school musical cartoon.

If the film boasts any advantages over digital, it's in the pastel richness of its colours and the elasticity of its characters, who enjoy a degree of comic flexibility and range of expressions we still don't get from computers.

The story is anchored in the reassuring bedrock of homespun Disney values. Tiana's frog-kissing gamble goes against what her father taught her, making the film a neat parable about the importance of hard work and the perils of taking short cuts. There are even several well-handled backhanders to the racism of the time.

On this score, The Princess and the Frog also deserves kudos for featuring Disney animation's first African-American lead character, continuing a progressive tradition that includes a Native American in Pocahontas, a Pacific islander in Lilo and Stitch and an Asian in Mulan.

The film's success has been widely seen as a revival of the hand-drawn form, though the common belief that digital would supplant the appeal of hand-drawn animation has never really taken into account The Simpsons. Even Pixar's digital pioneer John Lasseter, who now heads Disney animation and produced this film, champions any style, so long as it brings a story to life. And it does so here. Splendidly.