Fine equals disappointing in this case

Rating: 6/10 (17 April 2017)

1. Belle is basically the Hermione Granger of her time. Like there are so many similarities. 1. They are both empowered females who always have their nose stuck in a book thirsting for more knowledge, #2Â…Â…Â…They both have muggle fathersÂ…see, so many. And Emma Watson convinces you that this character would look past the mundane, and surface level stuff to what is underneath.
2. As an aside though, she seems to live in a town where everyone seems to treat reading like it's the devil's water but it has a library anyway, and that's one of the things here which strikes me as more odd now than the last time I saw this. I mean why does no one else like reading, this version of France seems more like U.S. Congress.
3. The beast is again a cautionary tale here and that caution is- don't be an ******* or you won't get any poon tang. OK, it's a bit more complicated than that. If you don't know, he begins the film as a prince who's vain and detestable but is turned into a beast by an elderly woman who he turns away one night in the cold. He has until the last petal on a rose falls to learn how to love or he and his household are basically trapped this way. So what we can discern from this is, be kind to your elders, and yeah, basically don't be a dick.
4. You can learn a bit more from the courtship here though than from the 1991 film. The movie is trying to prove that there is something beneath all the hair, fangs, and rough exterior and get to the tender soul underneath. So I liked that the two talk and bond over books and she reaches him and vice versa. The lesson is, locking down pretty women is hard work. Yeah, he could have set his sights lower and saved himself much earlier but who wants to be a prince with a desperate chick hanging on your arm.
5. It also helps if you can sing, and Dan Stevens can definitely do that. He brings a gruffness to the beast's voice without sounding like Russell Crowe in Les Miserables, so that's a good thing. Most of the songs are in fact from the 1991 version with a few new ones. One called Evermore is actually really good. Emma actually does a nice job here too, sounding a lot like the Belle from the 1991 film. Only musical choice I would have made differently is make Audra McDonald Mrs. Potts cause she belted "Tale as Old as Time" a lot better than Emma Thompson.
6. So let's move on to the film's villain, and i'm seeing a lot of comments that Gaston is just misunderstood and all he needs is a good woman to turn him from narcissistic, preening jackass into a kindly soul like the beast. It's a little bit like saying if Patrick Bateman settled down he'd be less of an American Psycho. Gaston turns more and more into a sociopath as the film goes on, and like millions of women have shown us twice already, that just isn't sexy unless your name is Christian Grey and you own your own sex room. Luke Evans is perfect in this role by the way.
7. It's his little buddy whose been a bit more controversial though as Disney made the announcement that Lefou is gay, which has upset certain parents groups. Well let's make this short and sweet. It's as if no one took a clue from a man singing about the physical attributes, sexiness, and all around perfection of another man in the 1991 film and is now like grandma finally coming to the realization that little Billy and his buddy Henry aren't playing video games all the time in his room. Other than that there is a one second scene at the end of the film, which amounts to just about nothing. This will not cross any kid's radar.
8. Looking at Josh Gad's performance as Lefou though, he did what he could. He's a bit annoying when he doesn't have good material and unfortunately for the most part he doesn't here.
9. But let's talk about the CGI cause there is some confusion here. As we all know the beast's servants are all turned into what it would look like if Pixar ever decided to make a movie about what happens late at night in Bed, Bath, and Beyond. Candlesticks, teapots, clocks, they all move fairly well here but they're expressions came off a bit hollow to me, which is funny because the beast's came off a bit better at times. Did the old lady actually punish the servants more by giving them the facial movement of an overly-botoxed 60 year old? A question I kept asking myself, especially after The Jungle Book last year, is what happened here? This is where I really missed the animated movie most.
10. That hand-held mirror that let's you see everybody all the time that the beast has is actually kinda creepy now when you think about it.
11. Lastly, isn't it odd that the film keeps telling us that Belle wants to explore the world and wants so much more out of life but neither movie really says "Belle went on to feed the hungry and help the homeless" or "Belle traveled the world and became the first female French chef" or something like that. It's just "She lived happily ever After". Who the hell lives happily ever after though? And what does that even mean? Maybe she's just hooked on anti-depressants like a Long Island housewife because her husband has stopped trying. Just saying, she wanted to see the world but seems to be settling into a marriage. Food for thought.