"I want adventure in the great wide somewhere..."

Rating: 7/10 (12 December 2017)

As a kid growing up and right up until I watched the film today, I never considered that "Beauty and the Beast" had it's setting in France. Don't know why, it just never occurred to me. However the names of the human and inanimate characters give it away pretty plainly. Nor does one think about the film adaptations to be musicals, but this one is and if you listen to the songs, the word play is pretty cleverly done.
With the success of Disney's early animated films, I'm surprised that it took until 1991 to come up with a picture for this story. I've read that Walt Disney tried to adapt "Beauty and the Beast" into a feature film much earlier, but couldn't come up with a suitable treatment. I'd have to say the long wait worked in it's favor, as the movie is definitely entertaining and colorful, with plenty of fanciful and whimsical elements supporting the human characters. I'm surprised a bit at the way Gaston was written, he comes across as a classic chauvinist. But then again, the feminist movement was in full bloom by the time the Nineties rolled around, and what better way to contrast a scholarly, book reading girl like Belle than to have her as an independent, free spirit who deflected his unwanted attention. She might have tried a good right cross to his jaw too, but that would not have retained her femininity.
So I'm not much into animated films, but this one was well done and quite entertaining. For a distinctively different visual treat, one must definitely see the 1946 movie directed by Jean Cocteau. It does for classic black and white films what this one did in color, and that's to deliver a wonderful and timeless tale of love and magic. It may be the best interpretation of "Beauty and the Beast" out there.