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How many films about a snooty self-centred royal interested only in parties, music and chasing girls who gets turned into an animal by a tall, skinny dark-haired purple-wearing villain eyeing power, only to be saved and have their worldview shifted by a commoner extolling the virtues of hard-work can one animation studio make?

Two in the same decade, if you're Disney.

They should have stuck with The Emperor's New Groove, which was their last traditionally animated film that really hit the mark for me. New Groove threw around colour and slapstick humour for children with witty remarks for their parents: its purpose was entertainment and it shone.

The Princess and the Frog sees itself in a whole other category: self-serious, sentimental, and relentlessly on-message.

The first scene is of perfect parents trading loving glances and wise words whilst tucking-in a sweetly obedient child: this is a sugary idealised family rather than a realistic one. In this film the good guys are good all the time, the bad guys thoroughly corrupt, and the wavering prince in the middle goes from selfish to servant in the space of one musical sequence. I wish the Holy Spirit changed me that quickly!

The three gods in this film are love, faith and hard-work. Love is romantic love, which no life could really be complete without. It changes people dramatically, turning a prince who'd planned to marry for money into a man willing to slave all his days for his beloved's dream. The faith is in stars and wishes, things that won't actually demand anything from you. It's a belief that the universe is a good force that sustains and delivers without acting in any visible or meaningful way (even while forces of evil are evident and empowering). The hard-work is doing what that good force cannot really accomplish; wishes come true for those who make them come true. The correct order of things is to ask something of a star and then do it yourself.

In other words, it is a sweetly liberal view where there is no harm in cultural religion but no practical reliance on it.

This is what I suspect the movie was about, but it's hard to be sure because several characters had such thick accents that I struggled to be certain of what they'd just said. Similarly the first couple of songs were enunciated nicely but by the time the plot had reached the bayou the lyrics were slushed together in a way Tim Rice would never have allowed.

So perhaps it would have been a funnier film if I'd understood more of it. Overall there were few out-and-out laughs – though several smiles – from myself and only slightly more from the children in the audience (as it is of course children Disney is aiming for).

Much has been made about how The Princess and the Frog is Disney's first black animated heroine and how good it is to have an active female who does her own saving: too much. While it may have taken Disney films awhile to catch up, there are plenty of films and television shows for children starring damsels not-in-distress from Spirited Away to Dora the Explorer to Kim Possible. Yes, less than male characters and frequently white but it's not ground-breaking and not a novelty that can carry the movie.

Is it a film to take your younger siblings, cousins or nephews too? Probably unlikely to give them nightmares if they believe Jesus is stronger than bad magic but equally unlikely to provide any truly positive messages. Hire The Emperor’s New Groove instead: it was done better the first time around.

Rachel Macdonald