A Bela e o Monstro

Beauty and the Beast is certainly adequate holiday entertainment for children and their more indulgent parents... But the film has little of the technical facility, vivid characterization and emotional impact of Disney past.

The set pieces are narcotically pleasing, especially the Busby Berkeley-style dancing-kitchenware spectacular, "Be Our Guest," and the romantic ballroom centerpiece that brings Beauty and her Beast together.

It's exceptionally difficult to make an audience care for animated characters unless they're mermaids or anthropomorphized animals or insects, yet the Disney animators, with a big assist from the vocal talents of a superb cast, have pulled it off.

Beauty and the Beast is one of the year`s most entertaining films for both adults and children.

At the intersection of great animated films, great filmed stage musicals, and great fairy-tale romances, Disney's Beauty and the Beast stands alone ... the quintessential Disney masterpiece.

Better remembered than seen, Beauty and the Beast has been treated unkindly not just by the years that have passed since it was released to enormous acclaim in 1991, but by a faddish 3D conversion.

Beauty and the Beast, as good as it looks on Blu-ray, as superbly as it plays at home, deserves to be seen in a movie theatre.

And it is a joy to revisit the timeless pleasures of traditional Disney storytelling, with no attempts to add sizzle from celebrity voice talent or radio-friendly pop songs.

In these sterile, technological days when creations of architecture, movies and other splendors are inferior to the classics of past ages, this artisan-crafted masterpiece is perhaps the closest we'll ever come to a Gothic cathedral.

It's got storytelling vigor and clarity, bright, eclectic animation, and a frisky musical wit.

A lovely film that ranks with the best of Disney's animated classics.

It is a surprise, in a time of sequels and retreads, that the new film is so fresh and altogether triumphant in its own right.

There's still room in this world for innocent love stories -- and tales as old as time.

Despite some excessive narrative streamlining, this 1991 release was the best Disney animated feature in years, full of charm and humor.

[A] great film...

Brims with charm, style, and flawless execution that doesn't feel the least bit dated by subsequent technological advancements.

Its animators' pens are wands; their movement enchants.

A uniquely elegant and entertaining mix of hand-drawn classicism and high-tech innovation.

It's not an especially scary movie, but right from the start, you can tell that this Beauty and the Beast has a beauty of a bite.

The greatest animated film ever made and one of the screen's great musicals hardly needs this (3D) sort of sprucing up.