Beauty and the Beast (2017 Film) Review
Kids-In-Mind Review
Human Characters
So if we are starting off with the human characters, the obvious starting point is Emma Watson as Belle. With the first few trailers, it was hard not to see or hear her and not think about her role as Hermione. I'm ninety-five percent sure that I wasn't the only one to think that. However, I have one thing to say about her performance. She was incredibly miscast as Hermoine. Her acting and with her singing, especially her singing, were lacking. The two things that are crucial to playing Belle, were not there in the actress Disney cast. It is a shame Emma Watson took this role. She turned down the role of Mia in La La Land. It makes you wonder what could've been if she had accepted the role of Mia in La La Land. As for the Prince/Beast, played by Dan Stevens, his performance was devoid of everything, including emotion. The writers attempt to try and copy the original arch in the 1991 movie, hoping that it will work with a different actor. Needless to say, the Beast is given a lot of personal character moments, including a song, but Dan Stevens does not do well with any of it. With a more extended runtime than its animated counterpart, the filmmakers try to give Belle and the Beast to fall in love more realistically. Since both characters do not work, it is not surprising that the time is not well-used. The only character to actually surpass a character in the original, is Maurice. I hold a lot of respect for the original, but depicting Maurice as a caring, loving father, rather than a crazy and eccentric father, proved to be the superior storyline for the character. Gaston here is as dimwitted as the original, but nonetheless more evil than the original. There's more evil at work here than what the original character did. That doesn't make this new version good, ass Luke Evans phones it in as Gaston. He literally sits out for most of his song not giving a care about his role. LeFou had way much to do here. Josh Gad is a big star for Disney. He's Olaf in the Frozen film and casting him as LeFou, felt lazy. Like most of the characters in this movie, he does a terrible job.
The Castle Staff
The Castle Staff were horrible. At least some of them, but let's start with the good. Ewan McGregor has the only good role as Lumière. He really does. Be Our Guest, one of the songs returning for the remake, was probably the best of the original songs. That's not saying much, though, as the other songs from the original are bad to atrocious. One of the few highlights from the VFX department, is Lumière. His candle design was sensational. It transitioned nicely from animation to live-action. Ian McKellen plays the role of Cogsworth with mixed results. It was hard not to hear Gandalf at first. In fact, and this isn't a spoiler, when the villagers invade the castle, Cogsworth is trying to block three guys from going up some stairs, and I was waiting for him to shout "You shall not pass!" He's a little less funnier than in the original. It was really Lumière who did all the heavy lifting when it came to cracking jokes. I loved the detail and design on Cogsworth. I did not like the look of Plumette, the feather duster who's apparently Lumière's girlfriend. This is one of a series of unnecessary relationships in this remake. I didn't get how she moved around. She'd fly around the room from time to time and I'm like "How are you doing that?" I have a few similar problems with Mrs Potts and how she moves around without breaking, but when Mrs Potts would jump on the ground, there was always a pillow or something to keep her from breaking. With Plumette, I just didn't get it. When Emma Thompson was cast as Mrs Potts, I said to myself "alright," but her design didn't work for me. Sadly, I still think Jessica Fletcher, or Angela Lansbury, is the better Mrs Potts. That includes her singing. I didn't find Beauty and the Beast, the song, to be as grand this time around. The music swells weren't there. Something was missing. Emma Thompson doesn't sing the lyrics very well.
The Old
Throughout the film, particularly the first fifteen minutes, I felt like I was watching a shot-by-shot, live-action redo of the original. From the narration, to the exact filming style, and the lines that are ripped right from the original. That's the worst thing about this shameful remake. They changed a few little things and if it weren't for them, it'd be a straight redo. It is altered in some areas and I hated most of it. While I'm talking about the old, let's talk about the songs, the old ones at least. Starting out is of course the opening song, "Belle." There were a few changes to what characters were featured and some of the lines were tweaked. This wasn't a great sign of things to come with Emma Watson. She failed her singing. Her voice screams auto tuned. That's not a good sign, especially since it's Belle. "Gaston" was ruined. His song was changed not only in lines, but in quality. It's not even Gaston's song. It seemed to highlight Josh Gad's LeFou rather than Luke Evans as Gaston. Some great lines from the original, are removed and the result is atrocious. I already covered Be Our Guest and Beauty and the Beast and all that I can say is that you'll like the former and you may hate the latter.
The New
When you see the film, you'll find that there may be something there that wasn't there before.{rimshot} Thank you, have a good day, or night. As I said in my intro, the original is an animated masterpiece, but overtime, I've found a few flaws in it. For example, the original Be Our Guest song has a line "Ten years we've been rusting..." The flower dies when the Beast turns twenty-one. That means the Enchantress cursed a ten year old for being rude. See? With the new one, problems like that were fixed. There are a ton of new things added. From new songs, to new plot points, there's not much more of a defined relationship with the characters. With the new songs, the Beast has a song and the "Human Again" song featured in the re-releases of the original, is replaced with another song for the castle servants. I think you may not like some of the changes, because there was a lot that didn't work for me. However, you may not feel the same way. If you welcome changes than you'll love them. If you don't love changes to classics, especially unnecessary ones, you're not gonna like them. I fall on the latter side.
Production and Costume Design
I want to mention the quality of production and costume design at play here. The castle looked fantastic, however there's one, possibly fatal flaw to it. That is, that there are a severe lack of handrails on the stairs and walkways with edges. It's like Middle-Earth where they had no handrails. Isn't it funny that I mentioned Middle-Earth here when Ian McKellen and Luke Evans were in that world too? Speaking of stairs, as Belle went up the stairs, my dad said "What! Why don't the stairs move in Hogwarts's anymore?" #DadJoke. The ballroom looked fantastic and the village, despite its inhabitants, looked cozy and quaint. Shoutout to the production team for the level of detail applied to this film. Same thing for the costume design team. Despite some missing sleeves, Belle's iconic gold dress was beautiful. Especially with the pattern. Every other costume in this film has their own particular level of personality to it. I believe that when you see the film you'll agree. If you have already, I'd like to hear your thoughts on the matter.
VFX
The VFX are alright. I wasn't crazy about the initial look of the Beast and I did not get used to that design. I don't know why they couldn't try something better than they got. The design of the castle's enchanted objects worked great. It was hard to see the eyes on some of them, but again, the attention of detail applied to each and every one of them was pretty good. That's said..
Grade: D-
Should you see Disney's latest live-action remake? No. If you loved the original animated film, you should stay home and watch the original. If you haven't seen the original, watch the original. If you choose to watch this movie in theaters and are wondering if you should see it in 2D or 3D, while I didn't see it in 3D, with the level of detail here, see it in 3D. I believe it will enhance your experience. If you have kids, take them. You may be bored at points, like me, they will likely be enchanted. This film isn't too scary for them, but they may be intimidated by the Beast at points. For a majority of it, it's the same thing you've seen before, but longer with new storylines, songs, and actors. Outstanding production design keeps it from getting a lower grade.
So that's my review of the recent rendition of Beauty and the Beast. If you've already seen the film, I'd be curious to get your thoughts on the film. Try not to be too spoiler-y should you decide comment. When commenting, let me know which film you'd like me to review next. Share this with your friends and family. Thanks for reading, I'm the Film Fanatic, bye-bye.
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