As many of you already know, Disney has always had a history of delivering spectacular animated adventures, full of fun characters, thrilling action and magical song-and-dance numbers. We really saw these films come full circle in the late 1980s and ‘90s with films like “The Little Mermaid” and “The Lion King.”

Then in 1995, a little movie called “Toy Story” was released, and it changed animation forever. Soon, more and more animated movies turned to computer animation and the age of hand-drawn Disney musicals died with 1998’s “Mulan.”

It’s been a long 11 years, but Disney has finally delivered something that’s sure to entertain children, as well as provide a little nostalgia for us college students who grew up with the ‘90s beloved classics.

“The Princess and the Frog” certainly isn’t the greatest Disney musical, but it’s nice to see Disney going back to what made them such a huge success in the first place.

The movie takes place in New Orleans, where a poor waitress named Tiana (Anika Noni Rose) is saving her money to open a dream restaurant in the heart of downtown. Her life takes an awkward direction, however, when Prince Naveen (Bruno Campos) arrives. After Naveen is turned into a frog by the evil voodoo witch doctor, Dr. Lucifer (Keith David), and he sees Tiana dressed in a stunning princess outfit, he proposes that she should kiss him to break the spell. However, when they finally go for the smooch, both of them become frogs, and the search for a way to revert back to human form begins.

You can tell just by the plot this film is Disney’s attempt at a throwback. The great thing about it is they do just about everything right.

First of all, the characters were well-developed and hysterical. I loved everyone, from the sinister Dr. Lucifer to the trumpet-playing Louis the Alligator. The actors gave their characters some depth and dimension (including heart-throbbing chemistry between Rose and Campos), and the screenwriters make sure to keep the laughs coming at a consistent pace.

Sure, this ragtag team will probably not be as memorable as gangs from movies like “The Jungle Book” or “Beauty and the Beast,” but then again, very few movies have a cast that memorable. These characters do just fine at drawing you into the story.

I was hoping after watching the film, a song from it would pop into my head and I’d be singing it for two weeks straight. But that didn’t happen. While the songs are decently catchy, and the jazzy style is certainly a nice departure from Disney’s “musical theater” scores, there just isn’t a song that stands out.

In fact, there really isn’t anything that particularly stands out in “The Princess and the Frog,” and that’s the main problem. It was like the executives at Disney had a checklist for how to make a fun Disney movie. “Does the movie have a likable and familiar plot line?

Check. Does the movie have a romance between the two main characters? Check. Does the movie teach the audience a lesson at the end? Check.” It all felt a little too cold and calculated. There were no risks taken, and no grand scenes to floor you into Disney heaven.

Maybe my expectations are a little high, but when a company delivers movie magic for so many years, and then throughout the 2000s, has Pixar come up with movies that are just as brilliant in their own way, the bar has to be raised high. “The Princess and the Frog” misses the mark. As long as you lower your expectations, you’ll find a lot to enjoy in Disney’s latest entry. The music is decently catchy, the characters are wonderfully quirky, and the whole movie feels like its 100 percent Disney.