Brilliant, Beautiful, and Enchanting!

Rating: 10/10 (15 November 2005)

I had recently re-watched this excellent film and I find it even more remarkable now than when I had seen it years ago. Everything about the film from the voice acting to the character design, to the production design and animation and so on is all unsurpassed. But the music, that wonderful music - the songs and the orchestral pieces - is absolutely pure genius. The work done by Alan Menken and the late Howard Ashman is so effective that when Belle and the Beast started dancing with Angela Lansbury singing 'Beauty and the Beast', yours truly, a 29 year old man who probably has a lot in common with Gaston ('cept I cook my eggs), started to choke back the emotion without great success. And I never cry at movies*. But this is not a movie or a cartoon or a Disney merchandising gimmick. Beauty and the Beast is true art. It is an emotionally compelling, spiritually uplifting, and thoroughly joyous exploration of the human condition. I think it is one of greatest motion pictures ever made.
*The end of Millennium Actress by Satoshi Kon, another animated film incidentally, was the only movie that ever had me literally bawling like a little girl. I highly recommend seeing it.