Having re-visited Burbank Films Australia's animations overtime, I found that some did hold up and even better than I remembered and some that didn't really hold up. Thankfully Black Beauty, alongside Wind in the Willows, Peter Pan and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, is one of the ones that held up. The animation quality of the human characters are a little stiff for my liking, but the horses are beautifully realised and the backgrounds do have crispness and vibrant colour on the whole. The music is appropriately whimsical, and when there are dramatic scenes it also fits perfectly then. The writing is funny and touching, while never resorting to being childish. As an adaptation the story is loose, but when the story shows loyalty and courage in such an inspiring way while showing at least the charm of the original story you don't think about that. The characters are colourful ones indeed, Black Beauty is an engaging titular character and while it is obvious from the name also that he is bad news Filcher is memorable also. The voice acting is solid. Overall, wonderful, of a resume of mostly well done animated adaptations Black Beauty(1987) is one of the better ones. 9/10 Bethany Cox
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