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Rent Movie.com movie reviews presents Beauty and the Beast movie review a 1991 film starring Paige O’Hara, Robby Benson and directed by Gary Trousdale, Kirk Wise

Belle, whose father Maurice is imprisoned by the Beast (really an enchanted Prince), offers herself instead and finds the prince inside the Beast. Belle is a girl who is dissatisfied with life in a small provincial French town, constantly trying to fend off the misplaced “affections” of conceited Gaston. The Beast is a prince who was placed under a spell because he could not love. A wrong turn taken by Maurice, Belle’s father, causes the two to meet.

The film that officially signaled Disney’s animation renaissance (following The Little Mermaid) and the only animated feature to receive a Best Picture Oscar nomination, Beauty and the Beast remains the yardstick by which all other animated films should be measured. It relates the story of Belle, a bookworm with a dotty inventor for a father; when he inadvertently offends the Beast (a prince whose heart is too hard to love anyone besides himself), Belle boldly takes her father’s place, imprisoned in the Beast’s gloomy mansion. Naturally, Belle teaches the Beast to love.

What makes this such a dazzler, besides the amazingly accomplished animation and the winning coterie of supporting characters (the Beast’s mansion is overrun by quipping, dancing household items) is the array of beautiful and hilarious songs by composer Alan Menken and the late, lamented lyricist Howard Ashman. (The title song won the 1991 Best Song Oscar, and Menken’s score scored a trophy as well.) The downright funniest song is “Gaston,” a lout’s paean to himself (including the immortal line, “I use antlers in all of my de-co-ra-ting”). “Be Our Guest” is transformed into an inspired Busby Berkeley homage. Since Ashman’s passing, animated musicals haven’t quite reached the same exhilarating level of wit, sophistication, and pure joy. –David Kronke –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Disney’s animated version of the classic tale, “Beauty and the Beast,” is every bit as enchanting as the “tale as old as time” that it tells, making its way into our hearts as well as motion picture history. Being the first film nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture, as well as six nominations altogether, Disney proves that it has what it takes to make an animated feature enjoyable for adults and children. I remember watching the film as a small child, and now, as an adult, is hasn’t lost its luster, and everything is just as I enjoyed it before.

Through brilliant animation and song, as well as some terrific voice talents, the story of unexpected love comes to new and exciting life. Small-town girl Belle is forced to head into the woods once her father turns up missing, bringing her to a gloomy, secluded castle where she finds him and his captor, a vicious-looking beast. Of course, the beginning of the movie explains the beast’s origins: he was once a selfish prince who, after turning out an old beggar woman, was transformed, given an enchanted rose, and told “if he could learn to love another, and earn their love in return by the time the last petal fell, then the spell would be broken. If not, he would be doomed to remain a beast for all time.

” This begins their rocky-turned-romantic relationship, as they begin to warm to one another. Meanwhile, the town brute, Gaston, has plans of his own, involving some sinister maneuvers involving Belle’s father in hopes that she will agree to marry him.

Many have hailed this as the best of Disney’s films, and they wouldn’t be wrong in saying so, either. It’s easy to see why the movie has become such a success: there are elements at work in this film, just as in every other Disney film, only they seem to have taken on a small degree of maturity with this film’s creation.

The animation is some of the best and most believable I’ve seen for an animated film in a long time. Most of the scenes involving solely characters is the same as most of Disney’s works, but there are scenes of pure life-like reality that have a special flare to them. The ballroom scene is one such scene: the camera angles sweep across a room filled with high-arched glass windows and a chandelier which looks as real as the words you’re reading on this page. Some nice effects go into the creation of the castle as well, especially in the end once everything returns to normal.

The is one of the most moving Disney soundtracks to come along since that of “Cinderella” and “Pinocchio.” It is clear that composers were striving to capture the feeling and influence of their previous score for “The Little Mermaid,” and they truly succeed in doing so. The songs are delightful and will have kids and adults alike smiling and singing along. The score is the perfect underlining for scenes of romance as well as tension and suspense. In case you were wondering, three of the originally written songs were nominated for Academy Awards; that should say something.

This is one of Disney’s most ambitious and successful projects, ranking alongside such cinematic achievements as the successes of “Citizen Kane” and “Gone With The Wind.” Winner of the Golden Globe Award for Best Picture, as well as its Oscar nominations, “Beauty and the Beast” is a hallmark of a time when movies were something that everyone, young and old alike, could enjoy on the same levels. This is the best picture of 1991.

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