Movie Thoughts: Beauty and the Beast (1991)

• Released: 22 November 1991
• Directed by: Gary Trousdale, Kirk Wise
• Running time: 1 h 24 min
• Rating 4/5

Synopsis

A young woman is imprisoned by a beast who must learn to love, all the while being pursued by a man who desires to marry her no matter the cost.

My Thoughts

Beauty and the Beast. Tale as old as time. One of Disney's most iconic movies. Is it good? Heck yes.

Whether you talk about the breathtaking animation, amazing backgrounds that look like paintings in and of themselves, great character designs full of personality, great soundtrack and storyline, it's all there and it all rocks. 

I really don't have much to say about this one. It's just really, really solid. Is it my favorite Disney  movie? No, but definitely one of the better ones. 

Do I have nitpicks? Sure. My main one isn't even that major, though. It's just that the beast, you know, our secondary protagonist, lacks a name. Like, if you bother to give the titular beauty a name, why not the beast? It doesn't hurt in some scenes, but hearing Belle cry out "Beast" in distress when he's getting injured just doesn't really work. I know his name is confirmed outside of the movie, but it just feels a bit lacking to have one of our characters not have a name.

I guess I also don't care for the "Be Our Guest"-sequence. This movie has some wonderful songs and visuals that accompany them, but "Be Our Guest" is not one of my favorites. I really just don't care for the song, and the whole sequence always felt too busy and overstimulating to me. I'm not saying it's bad, just that it's not much of my taste and it also doesn't add that much to the overall movie.

The movie is just fantastic. We get to see the beast transform from a feral animal-like creature to a civilized gentleman all the while he's still in his beast form. That's just great. The villain is also great. Gaston has so much personality.

That's it, though. That's all my complaints. Great movie, absolutely deserves a watch.