Quite good, but also quite overrated **spoilers?**

Rating: Null/10 (25 December 2002)

A few days ago, I sat down and watched this film for the first time in about a year. And I maintain my previous opinion about this film - very good (and certainly better than most movies), but the greatest Disney film ever? Okay, most of the animation is gorgeous (but it was in "Pocahontas" too, and that film sucked), the voice acting is great (esp. since they can sing their own songs, unlike SOME people), and the (instrumental) music is certainly better than most of the stuff out there. But again, I ask - HOW is this the greatest flick ever?
It's probably just me, but I don't really like these somewhat cheesy Broadway-esque tunes. Well, the songs themselves are good, but rather the way they are presented - for example, the opening song with Belle - personally I didn't really get why the WHOLE TOWN was singing about Belle. I know it's called "suspension of disbelief", but I still wasn't that fond of that scene. "Like Gaston" wasn't that great of a tune, and the scene of course wasn't great (esp. since Gaston fired a 17th Century musket THREE TIMES in secession without reloading - despite Sgt. Kilrain's comments about men ramming ammunition down the barrel of a gun without stopping [see "Gettysburg"], I seriously doubt this could happen). "Be Our Guest" was, IMO, a boring and extremely overrated song that I did not like at all.
Humor is another department in which this fails. Humor here is lowest common denominator stuff (the final battle scene between the servants-cum-appliances/whatever and Gaston's mob being a worst defender - such as when the one guy is eaten by a closet and comes out dressed in a bikini with Marge Simpson hair), and I just did not like it all.
I also found the pacing a bit fast - since this is an animated film, I should probably cut it some slack here (esp. since I didn't mind it in "The Lion King"), but there wasn't really that much time for Belle and Beast to develop a real romance.
I already mentioned the films' positives, so let me reitterate - good, but hardly the greatest Disney film ever.
Seven stars.