Still Beautiful After All These Years – A review of Beauty and the Beast 3D
Summary: One of the latest 2D turned 3D movies still keeps the faith alive after all the years. The story and acting hold up even today.
It’s actually hard to believe that over 20 years have passed since this film was originally released. Beauty and the Beast became one of the first animated films to ever earn an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture.
It didn’t win, but the distinction led the way for the Academy to establish a new category for Best Animated film. Some might argue, though, that Beauty and the Beast may have deserved both awards that year.
Instead, though, we have to be content in knowing that the nomination broke new ground. And so did the movie. Beauty and the Beast proved that animated movies didn’t have to be “just for kids”. There was plenty here for adults to love as well. And a new generation of animated filmmaking was born.
The story was compelling. A beautiful young woman who refuses to be pigeonholed in a world that doesn’t accept female equality runs off to save her missing father and ends up imprisoned in a dreary castle owned by a terrible ogre – a prince turned into a beast by a witch after his narcissistic tendencies proved his selfishness. The curse would never be broken unless the prince could convince another to accept his “inner beauty” despite his external ugliness.
What ensues is a romantic story of trust, honesty, sincerity, treachery, tolerance, intolerance and jealousy all rolled into a neatly rendered package of beautiful animated artistry coupled with a great score and tunes worthy of development for a stage production.
And the appeal transcends the ages, too. Kids will love the cornball humor and the secondary characters, while adults will appreciate the sincerity of the romance and very “real” characterizations engendered by the renderings. And this 3D version manages to bring everything to life literally bursting forth from the screen.
This is a movie that, almost more than any other Disney classic, deserved to be updated to this format. The ballroom scene alone makes this tale so worth revisiting.
And even though we know how the story will end and what happens, it never hurts to spark that little inspiration that maybe love will touch every one of us in life. And that is the ongoing magic of Disney movies in general. Beauty and the Beast is a classic for the ages and will always be just that.
I give this version 5 out of 5 stars.