Finally a Disney remake that is worthy of Disney

Rating: 10/10 (18 March 2017)

I must confess that I am a huge Disney fan. I love the movies, well most of them. I love visiting Disneyland regardless of whether its Paris or Florida (Can't comment on the others as I haven't been to them but I imagine that they are magical too). But one thing that I have been critical of with Disney in recent years. Is the lack of imagination.
Disney seem insistent on ruining the memories of my childhood by remaking all of their animated classics in to "real world" movies. With the exception of Maleficent which gave the tale of Sleeping Beauty a new twist, I have been bitterly disappointed with the remakes. This was topped by the appalling Jungle Book.
Yet I was excited about the remake of Beauty and the Beast, while also extremely apprehensive. The original is a classic and all of the hype surrounding this film couldn't make me help but feel 2 things. First that I might be in danger of seeing the film in the trailers that when it gets to the movie that I will have seen it. The second was too many details were being released regarding it, such as it having a gay character and the first interracial kiss. Why should these things make headlines? However I went into the movie still excited about what Disney had done with it.
I watched the movie in 3D and there was a few things that came out of the screen but seeing it in 2D wouldn't have changed the viewing pleasure.
What Disney have done with this film, is set the bar so high for future remakes, that I don't think they will beat it. They treated the original respect, yet brought this movie up to date. The new songs that were introduced were beautiful and "Evermore" brought me to tears in the cinema. The hype surrounding around a gay character wasn't justified it was very subtle and tasteful that unless you was looking out for it I am not sure you would have noticed.
The story also had a few little additions but this all added to the film rather then subtracted it. In fact I would go as far as to say that it made the characters and the story more believable. I left the cinema wanting to go back and see it again. This film was that good.
The only criticism I would make is the sound mixing could have been better. There was a clear difference int he sound between when the actors were speaking and then the rerecording of their singing. The singing wasn't bad at all but it was slightly distracting. My concern that Ewan McGregors annoying french accent would grate on me for the whole film slowly disappeared as the film progressed. Must confess that I did think Mrs Potts was played by Helana Bonham-Carter but it was in fact played by Emma Thompson.
In summary the film was everything I hoped Disney would make and lived up to the magic that I expected. I have no problems recommending this film and giving it 10/10