Beauty & The Beast, The (2002)

Voices: Robby Benson, Paige O'Hara, Angela Lansbury, Jerry Orbach, David Ogden Stiers
Director: Gary Trousdale, Kirk Wise

Rating: G

Studio: Walt Disney

Review Posted: 1.3.02

Spoilers: Minor

Rating: 4/4

By Craig Younkin.

It's been ten years since "Beauty and the Beast" first hit the big screen, but even today the story remains timeless and even better than before. This film, which is the only animated film ever nominated for a "Best Picture Oscar", has now been remastered to fit on the gigantic Imax screen, and a new song has been added to make the film even more enchanting and beautiful than it was before. 

Many people say " why should I see this film on the big screen when I can just rent the video?" My answer to that is to experience the same nostalgia I felt today. Being able to see this movie with a crowd, in front of a screen that highlights the artistic details of the film, while the sound system surrounds you in full quality sound is enough to make you realize why you fell in love with Disney in the first place.    

Today, Disney films, as well as other cartoons, are becoming more 3-D, but in watching "Beauty and the Beast" for the second time on the big screen, you begin to remember how good the old films, like this, Aladdin, The Lion King, and so many more, really were. They told fantastic fairytales filled with style, humor, song, and a message that was fairly simple.

It seems today that nothing has really changed, but in a way it has. The old films like "Beauty and the Beast" and "Aladdin" contained the kind of magic in the storytelling that today can only be copied, not bettered. They paid specific attention to detail, and the music, usually written by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman, told the story perfectly through songs. 

Take the ballroom scene in "Beauty and the Beast" for example. It's an elegant and charming moment of the film and the title song could not have been anymore beautifully written and performed.

I feel just the same about the rest of "Beauty and the Beast", probably Disney's most genuinely moving and heartwarming love story. A flashback of how the beast came to be starts the film. He was once a selfish and unloving prince who denied shelter to an old woman on a stormy night because she was ugly. As punishment, she turns him into a beast and gives him one rose; if he does not learn to love, and be loved in return, by the time the final petal falls, he will remain a beast forever. 

The story then picks up with Belle (Paige O'Hara), a beautiful and intelligent young girl living in a small French village. Belle is much different than the rest of the women in her village, usually more emerged in a book than in the village's good-looking and muscular, but also arrogant, hunter Gaston (Richard White).

Belle is also the daughter of the village's crackpot inventor Maurice (Rex Everheart), and when he goes missing on the way to a Fair, Belle traces his steps back to an old dingy castle. What she finds is that her father has been taken prisoner for trespassing by a hideous and ill-tempered beast (Robbie Benson).

He agrees to let her father go under one condition - that she be swapped for him. Belle reluctantly agrees to the request, while her father hurries back to the town for help. Only when he gets there, he is treated as a loon by everybody but Gaston, who concocts an evil plan that would force Belle into marriage.

The rest of the film is rather predictable, but the message of loving people based on what they do and what they are all about, rather than on their looks, is more than clear by the time the film ends.

The romance is a lovely, good-natured engagement, voiced very well by Paige O'Hara, who gives Belle a caring sweetness and Robbie Benson, who is really effective in vocalizing the beast's emotional pain and outrage at his appearance, and later on, the loving person within. They also have nice support from Angela Lansbury, and two very funny performances by Jerry Orbach and David Ogden Stiers as the bickering candleholder, Lumiere, and clock, Cogsworth.

The animation is gorgeously designed, and almost takes on a life of it's own on the big screen. Alan Menken and Howard Ashman's uplifting and unforgettable musical talents complement it very well. They, along with directors Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise, make the music into not just another song, but rather a romantic or celebratory dance number filled with entrancing and gleeful visuals.

"Beauty and the Beast" is a richly told love story, with a good message, and loads of heart. It is the kind of film you rarely see, and the never-boring film you wish there were more of today.

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