hear warming at times

Rating: 5/10 (17 March 2017)

Lets make it clear this movie is not horrible but it leaves you unsatisfied. This is the second Disney classic being remade into a live action film with an almost exact 1|1 replication the other one being Jungle book and while I liked both movies I have to say this movie fell a little bit farther from the tree than what you would want. The big problem here was underdeveloped characters. The animation at less time could develop the characters far better and I wonder why that is. The thing that was amiss here was almost any passion put in by the actors except for GASTON! Luke Evans stole the show with his depiction of Gaston he was evil and selfish and arrogant through and through and we could believe him. Lefou portrayed by Josh Gad was a more endearing character than in the animation since here he had more characteristics than: "he just is a dumb and evil dude". Here he does deliver some of the lines that in the animation were delivered with little to no meaning with new take and his growing distrust for Gaston is a nice take however he is more like a clown than a gay man that wants nothing more than being recognized by Gaston. It would have been much better for his character to make an active decision to leave Gaston behind instead of a decision out of petty revenge. He could have easily been there to help break free Belle and his father. Now then lets get to Belle's father, he is just not there! This character is so bland and empty we could have easily done this without him. Gone is the adventurous inventor of the animation whose influence you clearly could see on Belle. Instead you get an artist with few dialogues and a face that is devoid of emotions. He is not endearing and warm and this in turn hurts Belle. The other side cast includes Sir Ian Mckellen a supreme actor that his voice is heard through the lifeless cgi but can do little to make the cgi character come to life as the CGI is done with a boring color pallet and the character designs for the color pallet used are too complex and make it hard to see their expressions and movements specially when you deal with Lumiere and Cogsworth since there is a lot of metallic golden shades used on them which makes their different body parts less than recognisable. Emma Thompson is there and and I couldn't care less, it has been a long time that I have lost all interest for her work and this movie didn't help either. Then we go to Belle. Oh boy what am I to say, Emma Watson is a Harry Potter child and has been doing good. However Emma Watson was kind of underwhelming here and I don't know if it is the Harry Potter movies creeping through the image reminding one of all the other times you have seen her in similar situations or the fact that Belle has been hurt by the Maurice (father) character. She is good, she can sing, she can deliver the lines very well but the whole thing is just very bland and I think I know what the real issue is: the cgi leaves little for actor to work with. It seems like she has not evolved much beyond her Harry Potter years.
The Beast has been butchered! his character's complexity, out of the window and the cgi makes him even less relatable. In the animation from the very beginning you see that he is a creature with feelings and intelligence, Beast is built with real scenes and dialogues not some exposition on how "His father was cruel and when he lost his mother he became like his father". Here we get far less dialogues from Beast and the emotion's all gone. His scenes are few and too far inbetween. He does not show any emotion except rage and hate early on so that when he does show up to save Belle it makes no sense. His change into a kind character comes out of the blue and leaves you wondering what happened. Also when Belle leaves we get a Beast that is depressing not mournful like what you saw of him in the animation where he is roaring and howling into the sky, Here he is on top of the tower under rain with head lowered and just looking down like he is Bruce Wayne or something. what is going on here? I do not know what happened during production of this movie, but it certainly was not good. The movie somehow manages to deliver on almost every scene in the original and every line but with very little enthusiasm and passion leaving it feeling like a cheap knock off and not the authentic remake done by Disney.
The songs are good and bring that nostalgia feeling but that is it. It seemed some lyrics were modified for no reason. There were 2 new songs if I'm not wrong and the "When we are human again" was gone which was sad because that song was very important in building up the side cast and castle.
Why was the enchantress still around? Why didn't she punish Gaston? Also what is up with that book she left Beast as a punishment? Some stuff make zero sense. As mentioned the songs are there and the nostalgia factor is there and these two plus Evans and Gad are the saving grace of this movie which is a shame because it could have been far better. All in all there were scenes that tears welled up in my eyes because of the nostalgia, this was most prevalent during the songs. I give this movie a 6 out of 10 meaning above average. I just hope that if Disney does make another live action remake they address the issues in this movie.