Beauty and the Beast-Just Plain Freakin’ Slick
Slick. I could sum up this entire review/essay with–slick. Wow. With great frequency Hollywood cranks out these turkey’s that are based on something, we, the cattle, are already familiar with. There is a formula: name recognition plus stars equals money. Every now and then, they apply this to animated works, such as Aladdin, but Beauty and the Beast was really brilliant. It’s a film that, one, everyone knows the core story, two it’s a film that guys will be obligated to take dates to see and three it is a safe enough animated film for soccer mom’s to take their future frat boys and sorority sisters to see. Slick. Slick. Slick.
On top of everything this film has going for it, the manipulative script is about the rich, but cursed prince, what else, that must stay in his mansion until someone loves him and so on. You get the idea. He is, of course, a beast and the lovely peasant girl is afraid of him until she gets to know him, oh the pain. Predictable to the bone, no scary surprises that could stimulate thought or new neurological connections between the two hemispheres of the brain. Perfect. And to top it off, we have a prince, who is really a nice guy at heart, of course.
The animation is fantastic and kept me from shooting myself as I sat through the mind-numbing crud that was the script. Luckily, like many animated films, they cut some budget by trimming the running time and we come in at around 90 minutes. Truthfully, the star of the show is the army of slaves that suffered under the whip to crank out the great animation.
Like most animated films, buyer beware, especially if you are a parent. These films are full of messages that you may not want your little narcissistic version of you seeing. Kids are big programmable fleshy computers and constantly sticking messages about royalty and princes into the minds of young females in particular may not be the best idea. You know, problems later in life with expectations and all. “I’m a princess” really may mean, “I’m a mean ass bitch,” twelve or fifteen or twenty years later. Those are only a few of the issues embedded with this film, so as always, Hollywood will babysit your children, but it comes at a price whether you like hearing that or not.
Story D+ (This story has been done to death. We all know it. The goofy household items coming to life is not enough to make it entertaining or original, just freakin weird.)
Acting C+
Visuals A
Originality/Innovation F
Enjoyability Grade C-
Home Theater/HD Factor A
Overall Grade C+ (The animation simply pulls the overall grade of the film up a few notches.)
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