Revisit the tale as old as time in Beauty and the Beast (1991 Original Animation DVD Review)

Post date: Mar 16, 2017 11:55:16 AM

By: Robby Timmler, Staff Writer

Posted March 16th, 2017

Beauty and the Beast was the 2nd animated picture that was part of the Disney renaissance (1989-1999). Beauty and the Beast tells the story of a selfish prince on one winter night who was visited by an old woman on a stormy night who wanted to trade a rose for shelter. Because of her ugliness, the prince refused, and it turned out she was a beautiful witch, who cast a spell on the prince that turned him into a beast and his servants into furniture. The curse stated that he shall remain a beast unless he finds love before the last pedal falls of the rose. Enter Belle (voiced by Paige O’Hara), the daughter of the town inventor Maurice (voiced by Rex Everhart), who has a dream of leaving her small village and going on an adventure. Belle gets her wish when her father goes missing on his way to an inventors conference. She goes out to find that her father was imprisoned by the Beast (voiced by Robby Benson), and in an act of bravery, Belle trades places with her father and stays with the Beast, meeting all his servants like Lumiere (voiced by Jerry Orbach), Cogsworth (voiced by David Ogden Stiers), Wardrobe (voiced by Jo Anne Worley), Mrs. Potts (voiced by Angela Lansbury) and Chip (voiced by Bradley Pierce). Over time Belle and the Beast start to bond and fall for one another, but once Maurice tells Gaston (voiced by Richard White) about the Beast, chaos breaks lose as Gaston heads out to hunt the Beast and “save” Belle from the Beast.

Beauty and the Beast is an amazing tale of loving someone for more than just their appearance. The film has great songs that are timeless and haven’t aged a day. The characters are great and very 3 Dimensional. The weakness of Beauty and the Beast is that petals on the rose fall after an undetermined amount of time, thus not informing the audience of the amount of time that’s passed since the Beast was cursed. Beauty and the Beast gets 9/10 stars.