Given how much I love the movies, it often comes as a surprise when I admit to not seeing one that is or was very popular at one point in time or another. Disney’s 1991 feature Beauty and the Beast may fall into that category. In that case, I actually have a reason for it: at the time it was new, I was in college and not really going out and either seeing animated movies in theaters or renting them later. In point of fact, I think about the only one of the “Disney Renaissance” movies I actually saw when they were new was Aladdin, and that’s one of the few Disney animated features I can claim to actually love since the sense of humor was closer to my own. Classic Disney is too…cute for my tastes. I always preferred Looney Toons cartoons, truth be told.
But I did go see the live action remake once upon a time, and honestly, it felt flat and unnecessary, so maybe it was time to fill in that gap As it is, here we are.
After a brief prologue explained why a selfish prince was transformed into a Beast, we cut to Belle, the oddball in a small provincial French town who loves reading and mostly seem to help her goofy inventor single dad not blow himself to Kingdom Come. Her biggest problem is arrogant hunter Gaston won’t leave her alone, insisting he marry her despite the fact she clearly does not want anything in life that he has to offer. Then again, Gaston seems like the type who would prefer to keep a woman like Belle as an ornament to his own success rather than out of any genuine affection for any other human being.
However, Belle’s father gets lost one night and stops at an imposing castle for shelter. Despite the invite from the animated household objects offering him food and warmth, the castle’s master, the Beast, bursts in and takes the poor man hostage. Belle comes by to take his place, but the Beast’s curse says if he doesn’t find true love by his 21st birthday, symbolized by an enchanted rose that’s slowly dying, he will stay a Beast forever while the servants stay stuck as various household objects. Will Belle find love with Beast even as he starts off as a raging monster that needs to learn to be gentle?
If we’re being honest, the time scale for this movie shouldn’t possibly work: after Beast’s initial awful treatment to both Belle and her father, she shouldn’t have come around as quickly as he did even if he did suddenly start acting like a decent human being (or whatever he is). But this, like many of the best-known Disney films, is a fairy tale and a certain amount of leeway is to be expected.
Such leeway, in fact, makes the live action version even more unnecessary as it tries to fill in plot holes that the original movie doesn’t really sit still long enough to raise those questions. It’s things like that that really make me question why Disney is even making those things aside from the obvious reason that they, for some unfathomable reason, sell tickets. Creatively, they do nothing and seem soulless.
And that is about as far from this animated movie as it can get. The hand-drawn animation is beautiful, though that is par for the course for the better Disney features, and quite frankly, between its memorable songs, cute couple, and sweet heart, this one earned it’s Best Picture nomination. Really, movies like this are so good, it’s even more mystifying why Disney remade it when a theatrical re-release would probably have accomplished the same goal at less cost. If you want to see this story done, do it with the animated original, not the live action remake.
Grade: A-
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