Beauty and the Beast (2017) Review
The original Disney story is very much followed the same in the remake, giving us some small changes and, to its credit, even answering questions we might have like how did the townspeople forget about the castle where the Beast lived or how did they know where he was? It is also stretched to two hours with some central scenes feeling rushed and new scenes feeling dragged. They even feel the need to show this backstory of Belle's mother and what happened to her, as well as the Beast's origins on how he became a selfish prince (it's because he had a jerk of a dad.) Was all this important? I didn't think so.
As for the cast, some give good presence and others not so much, particularly the main leads. Emma Watson isn't terrible as Belle, but the passion that the animated Belle had is lacking quite a bit from her. There was even criticism for the way her singing was seemingly auto-tuned but I'm permissive towards it. You know what's very ironic? Watson turned down the offer to star in La La Land due to scheduling conflicts with this movie. It's strongly possible she wouldn't be auto-tuned in that movie, but I think it would turn out differently, and she probably wouldn't win all the awards like the other Emma did. Dan Stevens does an OK effort as the Beast, who is CGI from motion capture, though he and Watson don't share the strong chemistry the animated characters had. If you ask me, the supporting characters do a lot better than the two leads, mainly the castle servants turned moving antiques (Ewan McGregor as Lumiere, Ian McKellen as Cogsworth, and Emma Thompson as Mrs. Potts, along with a new character Cadenza, a harpsichord played by Stanley Tucci.) Small props go to Kevin Kline who plays Belle's father Maurice splendidly, and Luke Evans as Gaston who provides the best singing. You also have Josh Gad as Le Fou, Gaston's bumbling companion, though he's not quite oafish in the animated one. There was a huge controversy when the news hit that Le Fou would be the first gay Disney character and there would be a big empowering gay moment. Honestly, after watching the movie, I didn't think it was that big a deal since it only lasts a couple of seconds. And if kids have any questions on Le Fou's attraction to Gaston, I think you could tell them that it is hero worship.
All the songs from the original movie are featured in the remake, along with some new songs which I found pretty forgettable. Some recreations of the musical numbers hit the mark like "Belle" and "Be Our Guest." But to describe the latter, I would have to borrow this quote from the Star Wars prequel trilogy producer Rick McCallum: "It's so dense. Every single image has so many things going on." What I mean is the number, while well done, feels a bit bloated. whereas the original had just the right amount of elements at the right scale. With the recreation of the "Beauty and the Beast" scene, I was intrigued from the start but my interest soon drifted away. There was something so amazing the way animators did the sequence with the huge scale and the iconic crane shot. I'm sure the filmmakers gave their all, but there was no way sadly.
Ultimately, this remake tries to be exactly like the original much like Cinderella (2015) but more derivative which doesn't work to its advantage completely. This wasn't really that big a surprise since good remakes are incredibly rare, and The Jungle Book seems to be that one that works so far. With the future promising more remakes from Disney, one could hope that some would be good and have their own distinct identity. It's inevitable that the studio would stick to their plan since this movie is a huge hit in the box office like some of the others. But as long as Disney is putting out original animated movies, there should be a good balance.
RATING: SEMI-APPROVAL
RATING: SEMI-APPROVAL
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