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Directed by Gary Trousdale, Kirk Wise
Voiced by Paige O’Hara, Robby Benson, Richard White, Jerry Orbach, David Ogden Stiers, Angela Lansbury, Rex Everhart
Duration: 84 minutes
Rating: U
If you think the 1991 version of Disney’s Beauty And The Beast was a visual masterpiece, wait until you watch the newly released 3-D version on the big screen.
It has all the elements of the Academy Award-winning Disney favourite, sending you back in time when you first experienced the classic tale that is as old as time. With the new digital transfer in 3-D, all this is so much more alive — in crisp picture quality and richer colours.
You will be in amazed, awed and exited by the improved visual feast. The ballroom scene with Belle and the Beast dancing gracefully to the theme song performed by Mrs Potts will take your breath away.
Another stand-out scene is during the song Be Our Guest, as the the bewitched residents of the castle entertain Belle at her welcoming dinner. Watching the plates, goblets and cutlery dance is so joyful and certainly induces some foot-tapping.
Some of the effects, particularly in the fast-moving scenes, can be dizzying, making you want to remove those bulky 3-D glasses. But persevere and let the movie do its magic.
Inevitably, fans will be divided. Some will prefer the original, used as we are to the familiar. Although the technological advancements help bring the animation to another level and, with it, a new legion of fans, it is understandable, for nostalgic reasons, why fans of Beauty And The Beast may prefer the non 3-D version.
Some effects have the objects popping out of the screen and flying into your face. These are fun.
This lovely fairytale is about the fantastic journey of Belle (voiced by Paige O’Hara), a bright and beautiful young woman who is taken prisoner by a hideous beast (Robby Benson) in his castle.
Despite her precarious situation, Belle befriends the castle’s enchanted staff — a teapot named Mrs Potts (Angela Lansbury), the candelabra Lumiere (Jerry Orbarch), and the mantel clock Cogsworth (David Ogden Stiers), among others — and ultimately discovers that beneath the Beast’s exterior is the heart and soul of a prince.
Beauty And The Beast features six musical masterpieces by the award-winning team of Howard Ashman and Alan Menken. Its opening number, Belle, introduces the heroine and her burning desire for adventure and romance when she belts out “I want much more than this provincial life”.
Of the six songs, the most celebrated is, of course, the title song, Beauty And The Beast, performed by Lansbury and later recorded by Celine Dion and Peabo Bryson as a duet. The song bagged an Oscar and a Golden Globe for Best Original Song in 1992.
As a surprise treat a short film in 3-D, Tangled Ever After, is screened before Beauty And The Beast. It’s a sequel of sorts to Disney’s Tangled and is about Pascal the chameleon and Maximus the horse who accidentally drop Rapunzel (voiced by Mandy Moore) and Eugene’s (Zachary Levi) wedding rings just before the event.
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