"The Little Mermaid" ain't so great.
"The Princess and the Frog" opens nationwide December 11, but hits New York's Ziegfeld Theatre on Wednesday. It's a slow, buzz-building rollout for Disney's much-publicized attempt to resurrect the traditional animation that transformed the company from mere corporation to cultural touchstone. But is it really a return to tradition? Sure, if by "tradition" you mean Disney movies from "Beauty and the Beast" onwards. The truth is, Walt Disney might not recognize the house he built if he were still alive. The classic animated features that are mandatory viewing for children (and valuable home-video cash cows), like "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves," "Dumbo," and "Cinderella," had little-to-nothing to do with the standard "be yourself" platitudes that have made so many '90s Disney flicks turgid and annoying. In the 30-odd-year gap between Walt's death and "The Little Mermaid"'s kick-starting of the so-called Disney Renaissance, the studio tried out a lot of...
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