"The Princess and the Frog"

She's as hard-working as Cinderella, as resourceful as Pocahontas, as brave as Mulan and as brainy as Belle: She's Tiana, the heroine of "The Princess and the Frog." She's also Disney's first black princess -- except that for 80 percent of the movie, she's actually green.

That deserves an explanation.

In this funky, often frantic twist on "The Frog Prince" set in 1920s New Orleans, Tiana (voice provided by Anika Noni Rose) is a waitress who dutifully works double shifts to save money for her own restaurant. Although well-versed in fairy tales, she believes a brighter future is only possible if you make it happen for yourself. "If you do your best every day, good things are sure to come your way," she sings.

But then a frog comes along: He claims to be the visiting Prince Naveen (Bruno Campos), who has been transformed into an amphibian by the sly black magic practitioner Dr. Facilier (Keith David). If Tiana gives him a kiss -- "Just one kiss -- unless you beg for more!" -- it could break the spell.

After some initial trepidation Tiana puckers up and... quickly finds the curse is contagious. She too becomes a frog, and she and Naveen must work together to undo the voodoo.

With its mostly nutty cast of characters and emphasis on slapstick, "Princess" is closer in tone to "The Emperor's New Groove" than it is to most of Disney's other princess-driven vehicles. The hand-drawn animation also sets it apart from the slew of recent computer-enhanced cartoons. The lovingly detailed Louisiana locations, running the gamut from rowdy Mardi Gras parties to a slimy swamp, are always a pleasure to look at.

If Randy Newman's generally jaunty score isn't likely to produce any immortal hits, its ragtime-y flourishes are certainly period-appropriate; he even name-checks Louis Armstrong and Sidney Bechet along the way. The screenplay by Ron Clements, John Musker and Rob Edwards also drops a couple of sly references to Tennessee Williams: The local aristocrat is known as Big Daddy (John Goodman) and his hound dog is named Stella. There's no cat on a hot tin roof, but there is a neurotic kitten who ends up clinging to the ceiling at one point.

Disney has often been criticized for pushing the idea that young women should aspire to marry into money or power. "Princess" tries to have it both ways: Tiana eventually warms up to (and softens the heart of) the playboy Naveen, yet she's also a certifiable workaholic who is determined to do it all by herself. "I'm not a princess, I'm a waitress," she declares, and she's not ashamed of that.

As for whether or not the film has anything to say about African-American culture or the racial politics of the early-20th-century South, the story largely side-steps or sugarcoats those concepts. Tiana's unlikely best friend is a wealthy white brat of a beauty named Charlotte (Jennifer Cody) who kept Tiana's mom, Eudora (Oprah Winfrey), on call as a personal seamstress and dress designer. Segregation is nowhere to be found in this vision of the Crescent City, and since most of the plot involves Tiana and Naveen's adventures in their frog incarnations the only major character of color in "Princess" turns out to be Dr. Facilier, who is evil through and through. His arch-enemy, a daffy sorceress named Mama Odie (Jennifer Lewis), is barely around long enough to belt out her gospel-flavored Big Number.

But "Princess" is first and foremost a fantasy, after all, so why should we expect it to provide much in the way of social realism? The movie is brimming with spirit and marvelous imagery (the freaky, psychedelic singing masks that back up Dr. Facilier in "Friends on the Other Side" are truly trippy) and Rose's soaring voice is always a joy to hear. Instead of history lessons, "Princess" provides lively escapist fun instead, and that's by no means a bad trade-off.