Beauty and the Beast Review · 4:56am Mar 18th, 2017
The TL;DR of it - was fine. A good film on its own merits, but as a live-action adaptation of the animated classic, inferior. I'm not one of those puritans who sniffs the original is always better, but that's the case here. There are parts and elements of it that work well and improve on some parts of the original, but as a whole, the original is better. If you love the animated film, you should still see this film to take in those new elements. By no means is this film an insult or disgrace to the original, far from it. It's just not as good. It's like saying that Final Fantasy IX is not as good as Final Fantasy VI - it's not that it's bad, it's just the other is so damn awesome, the other has a lot to measure up and fails. And so it is with this film.
Spoileriffic full review below the break.
So, let's start with the good - expansion. There is a lot more story here than in the original. We get backstory on Belle's family, the Beast, Gaston and Le Fou. And it's good backstory, it doesn't take up large chunks of the plot to dominate it, it's just there to be another aspect of the characters we already know.
Belle's mother died when she was a child and it's a plot point that she wants to know why her father moved the family to this little country village from Paris. That also explains why the villagers gossip about Belle like they do - she's a city girl in their eyes, moved there only so long ago (20 years I'd guess, give or take), so even if she was raised here since she was a baby, she and her father are kinda outcasts in this quiet little town where everyone knows everyone. And in the same token it explains why reading is a big deal - Belle is educated because Maurice is educated, he taught her to read but it seems none of the common villagers know how, so Belle's love of reading is peculiar to them. There's a scene where Belle tries teaching a girl to read and a school headmaster throws her laundry on the ground, angry with her. Dickish, yes, but again it demonstrates that Belle really is an outsider to these people.
Speaking of, Maurice is a better character. Instead of Belle's crazy old papa, he's much more dignified and fatherly to her. Our first scene with him isn't him blowing up his inventor's lab; it's Belle watching him work on an elaborate music box he's building depicting their family inside, when a slow-pan showing a painting on the wall that matches a small one he's put in the scene. But when he has to be a little crazy he can still be a little crazy, which in tandem with the above social isolation explains why the villagers mock him so readily when spurred by Gaston.
They give an explanation of why the Beast's castle in the middle of nowhere is so isolated, the enchantress erased memory of it and him from the world and the castle is shrouded in an eternal winter. We also see the Beast as a human in the prologue, but they cleverly do him up in a powdered wig and make-up, so even though we see him, we don't really see him, so the big reveal of his human form at the end is preserved. We also see the enchantress, but not really, we see her human form clearly but when she transforms it's just a face surrounded by glowing swirls of light that obscure her body, and she's never really seen in full anyway.
Le Fou, yeah, he's gay. And yeah, he's much more flamboyant than before, and they do more than one tongue-in-cheek gay jokes. But it isn't overdone or offensive. If you didn't read the news articles about Le Fou being gay going into the film, then saw him and what he was like, you'd suspect for sure, but it wouldn't be blatant. That said there is one really good joke they get from it. After the "Gaston" song, Gaston is laughing and thanking Le Fou for being such a great friend. Then, "how is it a woman hasn't snatched you up yet?" And there's a pause as Le Fou takes a moment to answer, and also for the audience to laugh, and we do.
However, if the idea of Le Fou being a flamboyant gay guy offends, there's good in him, really. They give him a redemption arc, and a purpose beyond being Gaston's toady. They don't go into detail on it but it is explained they met in a war Gaston fought in, and you can see Le Fou is doing his best to keep the guy grounded. Gaston is a lot more psycho and unhinged than in the animated film, and Le Fou is his moral anchor that tries to keep him from going too far. Then, as Gaston starts going too far, Le Fou becomes increasingly uncomfortable with him, and it culminates with Gaston basically threatening him into submission when Le Fou outright defies him. There's a good added verse to "Kill the Beast" where a grim-faced Le Fou marches after Gaston, singing there's indeed no question that there's a Beast on the loose preying on the villagers, and someone has to stop him. And then in the final battle he completes his turn and helps Mrs. Potts fight off the other villagers.
Gaston is, overall, a negative point, so I'll discuss him later. But a minor change I like is that, when Maurice comes back to the village raving about the Beast locking up Belle, Gaston doesn't mock and dismiss him, he saddles up with Le Fou and goes to see what's wrong, because he does care about Belle, and even if he doesn't buy the story he's into the idea of kissing the ass of his future father-in-law that could help him win Belle over.
The effects and costumes are fantastic. The outfits look great, this film will win an award sometime in the near future for its costume design. And the effects are good too. There's a couple moments where you can tell it's CG, but for the most part it's good. Cogworth's design is great, Mrs. Potts and Chip are good. Lumiere is not so good because when he turns solid, he wraps up around himself and looks nothing like he does when he's moving and talking. On that note, there's an interesting new detail they add that I liked, as the rose loses more petals, the curse gets stronger. At one point when a petal falls the castle shakes, more of it falls apart, and the characters become less humanoid in appearance (subtly so but you do notice some things if you look close). The castle itself also looks amazing, from the outside, but that's coming shortly.
Some minor points. Chip has a smaller, normal role, on-par with the others. The obvious kid appeal character is now just another character, and there's no plot point about him accompanying Belle back to the village either. The Beast and Belle get some more bonding moments that build up a connection between them, like him finishing a Shakespeare quote because of course a prince would be educated. "My favorite is Romeo and Juliet." The Beast rolls his eyes, "of course it would be." That's another thing, the jokes in this film mostly all work, including the new ones. I laughed and chuckled fairly often.
Now for the bad. There are two major problems I had with the film. One is that it seems rushed in some places, like the filmmakers felt they had to hit these plot points and include this scene because the animated film has it. The result is that a lot of scenes feel off. You remember when Gaston was going to confront the Beast, and they had quiet, ominous music and showed him skulking through the castle before finally finding him? We don't have that here. The scenes of Belle being shown around the castle are condensed, the scene with her father in the dungeon is condensed. This "rushing" problem first came to me here. Remember when Belle slowly, worriedly, says "come into the light" and the Beast slowly steps forward, revealing himself for the first time? Here, Belle is talking hurriedly and angrily, demanding answers, and swings Lumiere into the Beast's face when he doesn't move into better view. What should be the big, epic reveal of the Beast is not big or epic.
And that's the second major problem of the film - it feels small. The setpieces are smaller than the animated film's, the Beast is nowhere near as physically imposing, Gaston is not as physically imposing, and for these two characters that's a big problem. The scene of the Beast rising up to fight Gaston and towering over him? They do it but it's nowhere near as awesome. The magic mirror is a small hand mirror like you would buy today, not a giant looking glass that Belle could feasibly use to show a crowd the image of the Beast, but she does and they recoil in horror even though the image they're looking at is barely the size of a smartphone screen. And the ballroom, man did that get smaller. Instead of this massive golden hall that looks like it could fit a hundred people with room to spare, we get a little dinky room the size of a school cafeteria, and with lower ceilings too.
What should be the big, grand, beautiful architecture of the castle is small and focused. This is also a problem during the "Be Our Guest" number, where there's far too many close-ups of the characters and not enough focus on the stuff going on around them, so we don't get to enjoy the spectacle of it all, which is a crime because that song, and this movie as a whole was a visual spectacle, not only in the big flashy moments, but when we could just see the castle and the size and scale of it all. This movie does not have the size and scale.
This overall contributes to the film just lacking the magic and wonder of the original. The original is a fairy tale, and was obviously meant to be taken that way. This movie tries to be more real, more involved, and for it it's also more compact. The original animated film still has scenes that dazzle me to see. This film did not have anything like that. Well, one scene, during the dancing scene the lights on the chandeliers descend and the ceiling darkens, creating this image of the Beast and Belle dancing surrounded by starlight. That's an awesome scene, but it's a lone one.
Another minor point is, unfortunately, the one major plot deviation this film takes from the original. When Maurice and Gaston are in the woods and Maurice outright refuses to let Gaston marry Belle, Gaston knocks him out and leaves him in the woods, deciding he's just an obstacle now and getting rid of him will let him sweep in to help Belle. Maurice is found by a mysterious woman in a cloak and right as I say that you know who she is, yes it's the enchantress, she's involved. Not majorly, but she is here, and the second this character appears you know exactly who she is. This intrigues because I want to see where this new subplot is going, and the answer is nowhere. Instead of Belle confessing her love as the last petal falls and the Beast is revived as he turns back, she doesn't confess until after the petal falls, but the enchantress is here and hears her and reverses the curse anyway. This is a change entirely unneeded, as was this subplot.
Beyond that I can actually say the film's small flaws are not very many. There's a handwave that the servants blame themselves for the Beast being a jerk, because when he was young his mother died and his father was a crappy one. Now this is obviously meant to provide a parallel to Belle, but it isn't needed. Have them blame themselves for spoiling him as a child and the same character pieces will be accomplished. There's another plot point here, the enchantress gave the Beast another gift, a book that lets him go anywhere in the world temporarily, to reinforce that there is no place in the world for a beast like him. Aside from ruining the idea of the Beast being isolated and alone in the castle, along with raising lots of plot holes, this kinda makes the enchantress into a villain, giving him the mirror and the book to mock him and remind him of his state, when the Beast's behavior is meant to be blamed on his father.
Otherwise I have no nitpicking complaints. The flaws that hold it back are big ones, but on the micro scale each individual scene and character works. As I said, it just lacks the grandeur and wonder of the original. That's why I say the animated film is superior but this film still has lots of good new stuff to offer. Go see it and judge for yourself, you'll walk away satisfied most likely. But when reflecting on Disney's Beauty and the Beast years from now, critics and fans alike will be talking about the animated one as the definitive one.
I'm skipping over the spoilers, as I'm seeing the movie tomorrow. My question is, did you see the Cinderella remake?
4460983 Nope.
Aw, the Beauty and scale and grandeur are honestly the main draw of disney's fairytales for me. I understand that making it live action makes it more difficult to create such huge setpieces, but even so seeing that stuff shrunken down will be a big disappointment to me.
This the new Beauty and the Beast with Hermione as Belle? For some reason, I was under the impression that was going to be a TV series. o.O
Least we get some backstory on some of the characters.
Belle definitely takes after her mother alot and as Maurice said in the musical 'You are your mother's daughter therefore you are class'
Le Fou gaining some character development is a nice touch but Chip seems to be about 9 or 10 while in the animated he seems to be 4 or 5 and Plumette fr the feather duster/maid? Babette makes more sense.
4460986
Having now seen the movie... go watch Cinderella. It's what gave me and my wife high expectations for this one