‘But this is a Disney movie, what’s it doing here?’ I hear you say. To which I say settle down children and listen up. It’s surprising what a Jazz playing crocodile will make you forgive.

I went in to this fully expecting to end up spewing hatred toward Disney, because this happens to be my very favorite fairy tale and we’ve all seen what the Disney treatment does. Truthfully though the tales we know now are much different then the classic Grimm’s Fairy Tales, which I also blame Disney for, so I decided to bite the bullet and watch it.

We all know the tale or some version of it right? Good.

So this version has a bit of role reversal, well a lot really, and lots of kissing too, which I kinda like. Anyway in this one the prince is the one who must get over himself and because the girl he kisses isn’t a princess, she turns in to a frog. Makes some sense, which is new for Disney. It’s nice to see some character development on the prince for a change, usually the prince charming of these movies is pretty flat ‘he’s perfect’ and that’s it. He reminds me of Puss from Shrek, but less fuzzy.

The princess, starts out as a waitress, and she has some lessons to learn too. I actually fully approve of this princess, she’s a poor girl who works her ass off and not because some ‘evil step-mother’ makes her, it’s because she chooses to. She knows she has to work to make her dream come true and for that I like her.

The main villain is like Baron Samedi, the voodoo king from ‘Live and Let Die’, which is awesome. Anyone with sense would stay away from that guy, which explains why the prince practically goes straight to him.

Set the whole thing in the 1920’s, throw in that crocodile, a cajun lightning bug and a crazy old lady who lives in a boat in a tree in the bayou, and you have yourself a pretty good kids movie.