Be our guest? Certainly!

Rating: 10/10 (30 March 2017)

Over all, I was quite pleased with the movie. I was most impressed with Luke Evan's portrayal as Gaston and Ewan McGregor's portrayal as Lumiere. All of the other actors did a phenomenal job in their roles as well. I think that Dan Stevens was the perfect actor to play the role of Beast in his beastly form, but also as the Prince as well. As with all movies, I always think that something could have been filmed better, or an actor could have done more better. I felt the same thing about Emma Watson as Belle. She certainly is the perfect choice for such a role and there is now a whole new generation who are going to associate her as Belle instead of Hermione from Harry Potter. (Same with Dan Stevens I'm sure. There's a new generation that now knows him as Beast instead of Mr. Crawley from Downton Abbey). But I found Belle a tad-bit boring in this live action. One of the most significant things about Belle is that she is a big reader. She loves books, and this is one of the roots of her being an independent-minded young woman (aside from her being the only child raised by her father). I feel like they could have put some more emphasis on her love for reading as this is one of the primary attributes we notice about Belle's character in the animated version. Emma Watson, an outspoken Feminist herself certainly did an incredible job adding those things to Belle that are empowering otherwise.
Luke Evans' Gaston was one of the portrayals that really surprised me. I love it how he added a bit of a sly side to him whereas, in the animated version he's all 100% masculine and domineering kind of person, someone who always gets what he wants. The live action Gaston has the same masculine and cocky kind of attitude, but the sound of Luke's voice and how he acted him in the movie, I really felt added a good amount of slyness to his villainy. It really gave off that "evil parading itself as a prince" kind of feeling. Lumiere is the other character I was really impressed with. Lumiere has been my favorite character out of the whole story since I was little. I loved his rather more flamboyant, entertaining spirit. I also really loved it that they put more emphasis on his relationship with Plumette in this live action version. Lumiere certainly added a nice blend of refreshing entertainment in my opinion.
A lot of things have been said about Lefou, I read my fair share of outrage from people about him being a gay character. Lefou really reminded me of another character from a very different movie. Billy Breckenridge played by Jason Priestly in the movie Tombstone. I certainly didn't have any issues with that, and I think that Lefou added a great deal of humor to the movie. My advise to the folks who are repulsed by Lefou's sexual orientation would be to re-watch the animated version as there are plenty of hints of his sexual orientation in that version. At the end of it all, it's really up to the person as to what they want to watch, what they want their kids to watch. However, I do promise you, if you chose to see this movie with your kids, they aren't going to notice anything out of the ordinary other than this is a good and fun movie.
Would I recommend this film to anyone? Certainly!