A Good, But Not Great Remake

Rating: 6/10 (7 June 2017)

It's a tale as old as time...and this "live action" remake of the beloved animated "Beauty and the Beast" from 1991 wants desperately to pay homage to the original while adding its own spin. I will say up front that I loved the original and even owned the CD of the Broadway musical it spawned years later. This movie pulls from both as well as the original story. Does it work? At times. I will break down this review in three sections: Casting, music, and direction. Casting: Seeing as I'm not really a Harry Potter fan, I can't say I was all that ecstatic with the casting of Emma Watson. The movie didn't change my mind much. She sang well, but didn't do much else for me. Even her musical numbers felt flat with little expression on her face or in her body. Kevin Kline was excellent as her father Maurice even though his part felt limited. The real star of this movie was Luke Evans as Gaston. He was having so much fun and ate up every scene. The rest of the top-notch cast were fine with what they had to work with. Music: All of your favorites from the original are here ("Belle", "Be Our Guest", "Gaston", etc) and a few new songs added as well. I enjoyed some of the new lyrics and arrangements that were added to the original songs. Nothing was taken away from them, which was good. The new songs were okay, but none will be as memorable as the originals. Direction: Bill Condon is no stranger to bringing musicals to the big screen as he previously directed "Dreamgirls" as well as "Chicago". So it's no surprise that this movie feels much more like watching a Broadway show than sitting in s movie theater. (One of my friends said the guy next to him would applaud after each musical number) The big musical numbers ("Belle", "Be Our Guest", and "Gaston") were grand with extravagant visual effects and fun extras. Unfortunately Mr. Condon still struggles with is good CGI (he also directed the last two "Twilight" movies. For this to be "live action" just about every scene was computer animated in some way (and was blatantly noticeable). The beast, nor the household items, ever had much real expression. The backgrounds were clearly green- screened (George Lucas would be so proud). And the final scenes at the castle were so dark, you could barely make out what was happening between the beast and Gaston. The last thing I will mention is I would not recommend this to young children. I'm sure there are plenty of little girls (let's just say 10 and under) who love the cartoon are going to want to see it. But it's too long (over 2 hours) and at times can be too scary. My 7 year old got bored about halfway through. Several other young movie- goers in the theater seemed to lose interest at times as well. Overall, it was good but not great. I hope they do better with "The Lion King".