Great voices and music tie together this masterpiece

Rating: Null/10 (12 January 2002)

This is an astonishingly detailed masterpiece. I am reminded in the attention to countless small details of the way Lucas Star Wars team would obsess over seemly insignificant matters such as the "plop" of the snow falling back from an impact crater on the ice planet. Such loving attention to the texture lends depth to the films. So it is with Beauty in scenes such as her dazzling watz though the town at the openning of the film.
Really good films are almost always marked by the quality of the voices of the leading players. This is the case with the Harry Potter and Ring movies, and is also the case here. Robbie Benson's digitally altered voice of the Beast is perfect, but then so is Langsbury's Mrs. Potts and even David Ogden Stiers' Cogsworth. Stiers (Charles Winchester from M.A.S.H) also Narrates the films evidently with some of the same digital enhancements as Benson's voice received. He does an absolutely masterful bit of work with the small but crucial narrator role. It is stunningly well crafted job that is further brought to life by the IMAX sound system.
Finally - the music is nearly perfect. People comment on the individual songs, however, what has always most impressed me is that the entire movie plays like a single musical piece. The music is almost always there to support the drama and emotion from frame to frame, and yet it never remotely takes on the character of filler music. The transitions are seemless and the music brilliantly supports the drama at every point. An absolutely incredible job.
Truly, this is the greatest animated work ever made, and the best film Disney has ever produced.