Beauty and the Beast (1991) is a classic Disney
animated feature that tells the story of a beautiful girl in a small town in
France who gets entangled with a prince and his servants who had been
previously transformed into a ferocious beast and a variety of household objects.
The film is distinguished for being the first animated film to be nominated for
Best Picture at the Academy Awards and remains a staple of the Disney princess
cannon. The film is directed by Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise and stars Paige O’Hara, Robby Benson, Richard White, Jerry Orbach,
David Ogden Stiers, and Angela Lansbury.
Beauty and the Beast was assuredly a childhood
staple of mine. Coming out the year I was born, I don’t remember a world
without this animated classic, a status it has certainly earned over the course
of many years. The film is gorgeously animated and magnetic throughout,
transporting you to an interesting world with a brilliantly fast paced
narrative. The film very much stays within its bounds, however, and fails to
find emotional threads to move you like many of the great animated films of
years gone by.
I
think what is most obviously effective in the film is the animation and the
music. The film is a gorgeous piece of 2D animation and is one of the early
animated films to incorporate computer animated effects in particular scenes.
Some 26 years later every frame of the animation in this film retains its
stunning beauty. It is colorful and always has something to draw the eye and
manages to incorporate certain visual stylings that transport you to the specific
time and place depicted.
On
top of the quality animation, the music in this film is incredible. In musicals
it is essential that the songs be captivating and catchy so that the audience
gets on board with the absurdity of the execution of these elements in a
narrative film as well as getting them on board with the tempo the film wants
to run at. Beauty and the Beast nails
this in every way. From the revealing opening number “Belle,” to the fun
“Gaston,” to the moving “Beauty and the Beast” this soundtrack is one of the
most compelling in the Disney canon (and I could name even more from this film
to bolster this case). It has a perfect combination of tempo and temperament to
fully engage the audience and intrigue them and keep them singing the songs for
years to come.
In
addition to the main strengths of the film, it also has fairly compelling
characters in a narrative that functions mostly effectively. As the movie says,
this is a “tale as old as time” and it really stays within those tropes but
populates its world with interesting figures that pop off the screen. And not
just the likes of Belle, Gaston, and the Beast, but also the side characters
like Lumiere, Cogsworth, Mrs. Potts, and Chip as well. There is someone in here
for everyone and that makes it an inherently re-watchable film that is easy to
engage with.
The
problems with Beauty in the Beast are
limited but arise largely out of its failure to really go anywhere with its
premise. It is a very classic story but it fails to break through any of those
conventions to make the film more interesting or relatable. It executes well,
but it doesn’t make an effort to reach out to the audience beyond what is
already there and thus only does reach out in limited respects. Further, with a
very short sub-ninety-minute runtime, Beauty
and the Beast also doesn’t have any time to breathe. It moves along quickly
but the ideas and situations presented are really pushed through rather than
being dealt with deliberately. This left me wanting more out of this film that
worked for me as a child but much less so as an adult.
Overall,
Beauty and the Beast is an animation
staple and rightly so. It is a delightful film that keeps the audience
throughout and remains a favorite that I could pop in at any time and just
enjoy myself. It’s not perfect, but it is certainly very strong.
Ryan’s
Score: 8/10
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