Beauty and the Beast was released on March 17th of 2017. A remake of the classic animated film from 1991, it is directed by Bill Condon and adapted from the original screenplay by Stephen Chbosky and Evan Spiliotopoulos. In it Belle (Emma Watson), a young girl living in an 18th century French village, has her dream of escaping her provincial life granted when her father (Kevin Kline) is imprisoned by a mysterious Beast (Dan Stevens)
Beauty and the Beast is an exercise in futility. This may seem like a foregone conclusion given that it's a remake of a beloved classic but Disney's track record with these remakes of their animated classics has been pretty good.
The Jungle Book was my favorite film of 2016 (yes
really) and, though I have yet to watch
Cinderella, it was quite well received critically. Perhaps the difference is that the original versions of
those films, while beloved in there own right, were not as universally acclaimed as
Beauty and the Beast, which is the first animated film to ever be nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars and is often cited as the best film of the Disney Renaissance. Nevertheless, I still believe that a remake could have worked if the filmmakers were interested in taking the story in a new direction. After all, the original film made
generous changes to its source material. Unfortunately this is not the direction that Disney decided to go.
In essence, this film is a scene for scene remake of the original, albeit with a few new scenes added. The Beast's backstory is more fleshed out, there's a subplot explaining what happened to Belle's mother and Gaston tries to win Maurice's approval in order to marry Belle. None of these changes really impact the main story though. The Beast is still in need of redemption and Belle is the only one who can bring out the man behind the monster. Gaston's more subtle wooing of Belle is probably meant to make him more sympathetic but really it just wastes the audiences time. Consequently, the new scenes just end up feeling extraneous. There are also smaller changes. Belle is an inventor like her father in this version, a choice that's meant to make her seem more liberated I suppose but the film spends too much time on it. Maurice himself is much more proactive, one of the few changes I actually like. It's implied that LeFou is gay and has feelings for Gaston which, again, just seems to unnecessarily complicate the story. In this version the Beast's servants will become inanimate objects once the last rose petal falls, heightening the stakes but undermining the emotional loyalty they have to the Beast.
The cast all do a decent enough job. Emma Watson is pretty good as Belle, bringing the same spunky, kind demeanor she brought to Hermione Granger. Dan Stevens is a bit subdued as the Beast, never really breaking out of the tortured soul archetype. Luke Evans and Josh Gad have fun as Gaston and LeFou. Kevin Kline plays a (thankfully) much more sympathetic Maurice. The musical numbers, on the other hand, don't fair so well. Most of the cast can sing well enough but you can't help but compare them to the original cast and they mostly pale in comparison. Watson, on the other hand, can't sing at all, and a generous amount of auto tune was clearly applied to her songs. The new material is alright, as an Andrew Loyd Webber fan I found "Evermore" entertaining in that overwrought "woe is me"
Phantom of the Opera sort of way. But, like most of the additions to the film these songs just feel inoffensively bland and they add little of real substance to the story.
Visually the film is actually better than I expected. When Bill Condon, who did the last two
Twilight films, was announced as the director I was really skeptical but his blocking is actually pretty decent and the film has a vibrant, dynamic look. It makes me sad that Condon is being wasted on such mediocre material. The special effects are also quite well done, though the various objects in the Beast's castle never quite come alive in the same way they did in the original (this is an inherent advantage to animation). There's also way too much green-screen.
Beauty and the Beast isn't a bad film exactly. It is well directed, well acted and (thanks to its source) has a fairly effective emotional story. Despite this the film simply fails to justify its own existence. If you've seen the original, watching this film will only be frustrating and if you haven't well, you really should. As a result I can't recommend this film as anything more than a mildly diverting curiosity.
Score: 6/10
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