I thought the animation and visual effects were outstanding! I loved how the household characters like Lumiere and Cogsworth looked, and most of the movie was just really great to look at. I think Be Our Guest was my favorite. It reminded me of some of the zaniness of some classic Disney movies, while still fitting in with the more modern style.
Beauty and the Beast was one of my high school musicals, so I know all of the music extremely well... and I was kinda disappointed that so many songs were cut. I didn't like most of the new original songs, and the first one, where little Beast starts singing about a sunny day or whatever completely took me out of the story.
Some of the other changes were cool. The timing in the original, as far as when was the beast cursed and for how long, etc, never seemed to add up, and it made a lot of sense to just have the townspeople be enchanted to forget about him. As much as I love the whole sequence with Belle and the Beast reading together in the original, I thought it was neat to have him actually be into reading to start with. It strengthened the contrast between the beast and Gaston, made it more believable that Belle would like him, and also made his gift of the library to her more meaningful. I actually thought there were a lot of little ways that strengthened the love story between them - not that it was weak in the original, but some of the parallels, like both of their mothers dying, and they both like reading, and the beast wants adventure just as much as she does, really enhanced the story. And the snowball scene was adorable and hilarious.
I thought the ending was quite suspenseful, too! Obviously, we all know what happens, but they made enough slight changes I wasn't sure what was coming and I was totally caught off guard by Gaston shooting the beast. And the conclusion with all the townspeople coming back was really cool, too.
I've been spoiling the soundtrack for myself for the past week or so, it was great to finally hear it all in the theater.
