Even with a 3D brush-up, this 1991 Disney cartoon looks remarkably innocent after the advances in digimation over the last 20 years. And yet its charm and energy are quite undimmed: it's a minor classic of the genre.
The fairytale has been tweaked a little, so that Beauty is now a feisty, bookish lass named Belle and the Beast looks like the Lion King crossed with a warthog.
Once the story switches to the Beast's castle and the delightfully eccentric serving staff the film takes wing, kept aloft by a stunning visual wit and a handful of fine songs (by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken), none better than the title track sung, magnificently, by Angela Lansbury.
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