Disney's most beautiful movie and my all-time favorite

Rating: 10/10 (24 December 2007)

I dunno about you, but this flick is without a doubt one of Disney's best and their most beautiful movies, which makes it my all-time favorite. The characters are very well-developed and have multiple dimensions to their personalities, not to mention particularly different to the typical Disney character. Belle's wanting to escape her life to see the world(which is the reason why, amongst other things, she is my all-time favorite Disney princess) and hate for Gaston, the best-looking guy in town, Gaston's vanity and lust for Belle's hand in marriage, and Beast's evolution in his hate for Belle to his love for her, which she experiences too, helped make this movie the beautiful masterpiece it is.
The music, which was by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman, is without a doubt the some of the best music Disney has made. From the eerie, yet beautiful twinkling of the "Prologue", the introduction of Belle and Gaston's personalities and wants in "Belle", the the get-up-and-dance fun of the musical extravaganza "Be Our Guest", and the simply magnificent "Beauty and the Beast", amongst the other songs of the film, work together to push the story forward, express characters' inner-most thoughts and feelings, and are just plain entertaining. Menken's scores too were quite beautiful, especially the "Transformation" score, which conveys extremely well a range of emotions, from Beast's dying to the triumphant finale.
And what would this movie be without the animation? The sweeping of the camera to Belle and Beast dancing in the ballroom during "Beauty and the Beast", which gives me the chills every time, to the ominous darkness of Belle's trek into the forbidden West Wing, along side with the music, make it a treat for both the eyes and the ears.
All in all, the movie is a pure masterpiece in many ways and forms and it clearly deserved all the awards and nominations it received, including the nomination for the Best Picture Oscar. This is a movie all Disney fans should watch and I guarantee you'll enjoy it.