Beauty and the Beast 2017
An adaptation of the Disney fairy tale about a monstrous-looking prince and a young woman who fall in love. Release date Beauty and the Beast - Feb 23, 2017.
Maybe in my life I have watched the original 1991 movie too often and no remake would have been good enough. I don't know. But I do know I had a lot more trouble accepting this remake while watching it than I did with last year's excellent "The Jungle Book" and the previous year's "Cinderella". While the other two felt like relatively fresh retellings, this one felt like a high-production rip-off. There are many changes and things added, but they are not all successful. Some of the things they copied over again did not work for me this time.
Like the design of the inanimate object servants. They look too much like the objects they are. It is often hard to interpret facial expressions or body language. I am reminded of the carpet in "Aladdin", which is bad if this is a large part of your supporting cast. That could just be my own problem though. But my biggest problem with them lies with the tea kettle and cups.
I was not impressed with any sort of warm characterization for them that I felt in the animated film. The voice of Mrs. Potts here bothered me, though it may be me just comparing her voice to the former film's. When all those characters transformed back into humans at the end, I wasn't as excited to learn what they actually looked like. The underwhelming nature of this overwhelmed me later after I got home. As stated in the review, the end fight on top of the castle was not strong enough.
Part of the problem might be that Belle gets involved and assures the Beast that what Gaston says about how she feels is wrong, which then motivates the Beast to fight. The problem extends more off from there, though. "The Mob Song" pales in comparison to the original. Because Gaston is now a living, breathing human it is much harder to be certain that he is evil and deserves to die, instead of just being a mighty self-centered buggard with a lot of influence and pride. I was confused about the townspeople's mockery of Maurice in this, as nothing is shown with him being eccentric.
I had a harder time picturing Belle and her father as this odd pair that everyone talks about. If the movie is going to promote its theme of inclusion by revealing that a few characters are of color, treated equally with white people, why do Belle and her father get such a bad reception from others? Emma Watson is okay as Belle, but she doesn't have as strong of a personality as in the 1991 film. The film doesn't have much of a personality either, which may be as a result of it being lost in distant nature of the inanimate servants and the inconsistent pacing, which speeds much too quickly through some places that I would have preferred it slow down, and then lugs sluggishly through other areas.
The pacing threw me out of the film too many times than I count, which upset me when I was finally starting to get into the narrative's groove. The Beast looks like too much CGI and not enough like a living being, which made it harder for me to be convinced of the possibility that Belle could fall in love with it. At least in the animated film both characters were animated, appearing to live in the same domain of reality, even if the Beast was figuratively "disfigured". Something else just occurred to me: Did the townspeople used to live closer to the castle, or people from town go to visit the castle? One person expresses that she recognizes the place. It is baffling to me that a couple of the inanimate object characters are married to people who live in town. Did they just forget about each other, or what?!
Posters and photos
A little film history: up until the mid-1970’s Disney Studios reliably supplied family films ranging from drama (Old Yeller and Follow Me Boys) to romances suitable for young adolescents (The Moonspinners, The Fighting Prince of Donegal) to the utterly spectacular and cutting edge, as in Mary Poppins. When Beauty and The Beast was released as an animated musical in 1991 all I could think was how low the mighty have fallen when what was clearly a project that begged to be a straight-forward live action musical had to be released as a cartoon. Frankly, I am glad to see the master back on top, it’s a bit like having the Yankees back in the World Series.
You think Disney are primarily know as a live action studio? Sure, they released bog standard pay-the-bills detritus like Old Yeller, but they prior and since have proven themselves as foremost animators. It seems ridiculous even having to state that.
If it seems ridiculous to state it then why did you? Just to feel superior I guess.
A closed mind can lead you to miss a lot of good things. What’s the harm in going to the live action movie, and if it’s not as good as the cartoon (which it probably isn’t), what have you really lost? They didn’t erase all copies of the cartoon when they made the new movie; you can still watch it anytime you want.
I still agree with Angela Lansbury’s sentiment though that I don’t really understand WHY they made another one. I’ll go see it and find out.
Everyone is saying this is the first openly gay character in a Disney movie, but I think that goes to Craig Ferguson’s character in “How to Train Your Dragon 2” (as far as openly ambiguous gay characters go). (EDIT; I’ve just been corrected by the Mod that How To Train Your Dragon is not a Disney movie)
The CGI of the beast looked pretty bad to me, but I saw it on tv so…
About the “more is more” thing, yes, indeed way too much more is more philosophy in Hollyywood, but I also think more is more can be great if you earn it by as it can be used to emphasize grand emotions by putting characters into such dramatic situations ; the problem is they don’t try to earn it as enhancements for drama….
Speaking of which, one could probably tell instantly this isn’t a 4 star movie from the actor playing beast being this hunky type of actor which probably shows they weren’t looking for someone convincing as well-read and with a romance emphasizing wit etc….
had they chosen a different actor that just oozes refinement, then you’d probably know it wasn’t so much about the cash grab….
though I can’t remember if I’ve seen the original so don’t know if it’s even based on that; I just assume so, if he’s so well read (they showed us a lot of cartoon movies at school, so if I did it must have not left a big impression on me, so I doubt I saw it as they all left a pretty big impression on me though I remember seeing it at school so probably other kids were watching it).