61. Beauty and the Beast; movie review

 

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

Cert U

92 mins

BBFC advice: Contains mild violence and threat

Ah, the days of traditional Disney cartoons and VHS video tapes.

Beauty and the Beast was Disney's 30th animated feature and came in that glorious tranche of movies which included Aladdin and The Lion King.

Our children were very young in the 1990s, so our tape recorder was almost worn out through playing these classics over and over.

Beauty and the Beast is a wonderful retelling of the Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont fairytale of 1756.

I was surprised, however, that I recognised so few of the voice actors - with only Angela Lansbury the stand-out name.

Nevertheless, Gary Trousdale Kirk Wise's film rattles along and includes some of the most well-known songs to ever emerge from Disney.

Paige O'Hara voices Belle, the beautiful village girl who seeks the adventures about which she reads in her beloved books.

She lives with her eccentric inventor dad (Rex Everhart) and is seen as the perfect wife by the square-jawed but full-of-himself local hero, Gaston (Richard White).

Meanwhile, in a not-to-distant castle, a handsome but charmless prince (Robbie Benson) falls under a witch's curse which transforms him into fearsome beast forever unless he receives love before his 21st birthday.

Belle has reason to visit the castle and, with the help of a talking clock, candlestick and tea set, begins to see an unexpected side to the beast.

Of course, the story bears absolutely no scrutiny (eg how come the locals don't know of the castle and what happened to the prince?) but it is nonetheless captivating.

And its tunes are so good that I was humming them before they came on screen.

Yep, Beauty and The Beast is a Disney classic.

Reasons to watch: It's great songs

Reasons to avoid: Very twee

Laughs: None

Jumps: None

Vomit: None

Nudity: None

Overall rating: 9/10

Did you know?  "Beauty and the Beast" was the first Disney animated film to cross the $100 million box office mark. The finished product consisted of 7,000 feet of hand-drawn film, 1,100 painted backgrounds and 150,000 individually-rendered frames. "Beauty and the Beast" took over three-and-a-half years to complete.

The final word. Paige O'Hara: " When they were directing me in the film they were saying, “I want more Paige to come through, I want more Paige to come through!” So pretty much every character trait about Belle is like me. To be honest." Cosplay and Coffee

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