Ukulele-playing layabout prince falls in love (for unclear reasons) with poor-but-hardworking Tiana; she, in turn, falls in love with the prince... apparently solely because he's in love with her..?!?!! Seriously, Tiana shows no initial physical attraction to the prince, and during the time they spend together, he shows no redeeming qualities. We thought the hero's character flaws in Tangled made him unlikeable, but Flynn Rider is sadly an improvement over ukulele prince.
In the end, this felt like a less-funny Emperor's New Groove with a poorly developed romance tacked on. Meh.
Why couldn't ukulele prince have a motivation to mirror Tiana's? Make him a lover of music whose desire to play jazz/blues trumpet** was quashed by his parents (he won't have time to be a musician once he's king), so he runs away to New Orleans with a new identity and a sack full of his parent's money. He's a very good technical player, but never seems to manage to stick with a band because his playing lacks the feeling needed to be a great jazz/blues player. He hasn't truly lived, loved, or suffered. He and Tiana know one another, and there's a spark of attraction, but it has never gone anywhere because they have their own separate goals. Maybe someday they could get together once they've reached their goals, but for now... So he goes on playing, living reasonably comfortably until his seed money runs out, and *now* he has a hard choice: go home to his parents, starve in New Orleans, or declare his identity and marry money. Once he declares his identity***, the debutantes come out in force, the royal parents descend on New Orleans, and the fun begins. I think you could even remove the magical element from the story and have the "frog prince" be a metaphorical transformation****.
** Get rid of the alligator; or, if you keep the fantastical elements, keep the alligator and add a number of other swamp animals who all want to play jazz, and the prince forms his band with them? One way or another, the freakin' ukulele goes.
*** Or, the better to build his character, he could choose to starve, and we twist Roman Holiday a little, and Tiana discovers his real identity and has to choose whether to "out" him a) because she doesn't want to see him starve, and b) in the hopes of securing a reward that would enable her to buy the space to open her restaurant.
**** That might not fly in a Disney movie, but I'd love for them to try, rather than leaning on magic all the time. Missed opportunities.
Princess and the Frog? Not a Frog Princess? Or are you being silly?
ReplyDeleteI watched the movie with my father, sitting far away from the kids, and we had a delightful time. The music is better on second play than on the first time through ("Friends on the Other Side" turns out to be fun many times in a row), and the animation of the fight with the three hicks on the boat was truly brilliant.
I accepted the fantastical elements, and since I hadn't watched previews, the entire frog transformation thing was a big surprise to me. I think the abstract idea of the character arcs were that the prince needed to learn the value of hard work, and the gal needed to relax (and thus their love would bring them together), but in practice she just came off as too business-y. As someone who lived with a foreign prince, his relaxed gadabout-ness seemed entirely believable.
Your mileage clearly varied.
At least you're not watching "Missing", with an Ashley Judd so botox'd she can't move her eyebrows.
I'll believe the music is better the second time through (and I seem to recall "Friends on the Other Side" being the best), but I don't see why I'd give it a second showing.
DeleteI understand what the character arc was supposed to be, and could be very happy with the fantastical elements and a relaxed gadabout-ness (though that character trait isn't incompatible with him wanting to be a jazz trumpeter), it's just that when Tiana falls in love with the prince, they haven't shown us that he's learned anything about the value of hard work. He just... falls in love with Tiana because we've reached the point of the movie where he needs to fall in love with her, and she falls in love back because... he's in love with her. There's not even an attempt at character evolution, he's just "changed" for the better. I know I can't expect Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin every time out, but they managed to evolve Kuzco, so they could have done better for ukulele prince here.
We'll have to agree to disagree on the three hick fight. It was well orchestrated, but I can't call it brilliant.