 Jay Boyar of the Orlando Sentinel gave the film four out of five stars, saying "It's not an especially scary movie, but right from the start, you can tell that this Beauty and the Beast has a beauty of a bite." John Hartl of The Seattle Times gave the film three and a half stars out of four, saying "It's exceptionally difficult to make an audience care for animated characters unless they 're mermaids or anthropomorphized animals or insects, yet the Disney animators, with a big assist from the vocal talents of a superb cast, have pulled it off." Gene Siskel also of the Chicago Tribune gave the film four out of four stars, saying "Beauty and the Beast is one of the year`s most entertaining films for both adults and children." Michael Sragow of The New Yorker gave the film a positive review, saying "It's got storytelling vigor and clarity, bright, eclectic animation, and a frisky musical wit." Eric Smoodin writes in his book Animating Culture that the studio was trying to make up for earlier gender stereotypes with this film. Smoodin also states that, in the way it has been viewed as bringing together traditional fairy tales and feminism as well as computer and traditional animation, the film's "greatness could be proved in terms of technology narrative or even politics".
