One of the best ever!

Rating: 10/10 (10 August 1999)

"Beauty and the Beast" is one of the finest movies ever made. Notice that I didn't say "one of the finest animated movies"--it is a great film--period.
I still remember how excited I was to see this movie, from the day I saw a cardboard stand-up at the local mulitplex. I went on the night it opened, and I was moved from the haunting prologue onward. This is the rare film that exceeded my expectations. I've lost count of how many time I've seen it, but I did see it twelve times while it was in theatres (hey, it was out for eight months or something!).
The animation is excellent, but the real key to "Beauty"'s success is its wonderfully real characters. There is nothing false about any of them. The songs, by Howard Ashman (lyrics) and Alan Menken (music), are moving, funny and catchy. We all lost a great treasure when Howard Ashman died. His lyrics were never dumbed down and always clever, enjoyable for adults and children alike.
Special praise also goes out to the voice cast, who infuse their character s with life and real emotion. Before Disney starting casting voices just because they belonged to famous movie stars, they actually cast people on the basis of talent. Paige O'Hara, Robby Benson, Angela Lansbury, Richard White, Jerry Orbach, David Ogden Stiers, and everyone else are fabulous!
I forever lost faith in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences when they gave the Oscar to "Silence of the Lambs" instead of "Beauty and the Beast".
This will always be one of my all-time favorites!!