"Disney's A Christmas Carol" -- First of all, I hate this title. This will be addressed in a future post, but to me it's a branding shortcut that insults the audience. When the film debuted to a less than stellar $30 million, some blamed the release date (first week of November) as being to early for a Christmas film. But other Christmas-themed films have successfully debuted in that same time frame. "Carol" showed some staying power and has grossed a respectable $135 million, but that's still less than "The Polar Express" made five years ago. And for all the talk of dead-eye syndrome and the uncanny valley, "The Polar Express" is an original and charming story. "A Christmas Carol" is, well, a tale as old as time. Zemeckis keeps getting better at the motion capture animation and he makes excellent use of the 3-D environments, but his film lacks warmth and wit and charm. It's simply a very competently told version of the story. Without the 3-D gimmick there's not much of anything unique to recommend it.
"The Princess and the Frog" -- There was so much hope and promise bound up in this film, it may have been impossible for it to fully deliver. But, realistic or not, this was supposed to be the beginning of the next golden age, the return of the great fairytale musicals of Disney's past such as "The Little Mermaid" and "Beauty and the Beast," and the coronation of John Lasseter as savior of Disney animation. Personally, I think they nailed it. I loved it. The animation is truly beautiful, the songs are charming, the vocal performances are perfect. Most critics seem to agree. Richard Corliss at Time called it the movie of the year (that may be a bit much, but okay). But you know what? Audiences aren't really buying it. It's grossed $70 million to date, and it looks on track to finish in the range of Disney's other recent middling animation successes such as "Bolt" or "Chicken Little." To be an unqualified success, this needed to be a Pixar-sized hit.I don't know why the audience isn't showing up, but I have a kernel of a theory. The uniqueness of the film is that it is Disney's first modern fairytale. It is not set in a storybook world, it's set in 1920s New Orleans. The net effect is that the film really plays like a richly layered valentine to the Big Easy. The attention to detail is truly remarkable. As a native son of the Bayou State I loved it, but I wonder if it also limits the broad appeal of the film. In the upcoming weeks we'll learn if word-of-mouth will sustain the film to higher grosses, but right now the "Alvin and the Chipmunks" sequel has a clear a strangle hold on the family market. The redeeming hope for "Princess and the Frog" is that it will prove itself on the consumer products side by reinvigorating the Disney Princess brand. This would follow the pattern of "Cars," which continues to be a merchandise juggernaut after what was considered to be a disappointing box office run in 2006 (and it grossed over $460 million worldwide!).
