Beauty and the Beast 3D – review

In 1992 I called Trousdale and Wise's film "the best full-length animated movie from the Disney studio for 50 years", and the 3D revival sees this witty, dramatically inventive version of a familiar story wearing well. Belle, the daughter of an eccentric inventor, is an intelligent, resourceful, assertive heroine, a book lover who's courted by the Beast with a fabulous Borgesian library, a gift likely to puzzle future generations. As I noted at the time, the film's only let-down comes when the Beast becomes a conventional fairytale prince.