Beauty in the eyes of the beholder

Rating: 7/10 (2 April 2017)

In 1991, Beauty and the Beast made cinematic history, becoming the first animated film ever to be nominated for a best picture Oscar. Now 26 years later the film is given the live action treatment by Disney, following the success of other such films like; Maleficent, Cinderella and The Jungle Book. 2017's Beauty and the Beast retells the same story from 26 years ago, but with impressive visuals and good acting, this film serves as an acceptable remake of the classic original.
The film is visually stunning, the cinematography and visual effects work perfectly together to bring these, once animated characters and settings to life. This is really all the film needed to achieve as the story itself is exact same as the original 1991 animation, bar a few plot point tweaks. Now that visual effects and animation has come along way since the 90s, Disney wants to flaunt this with these remakes, as evidenced by The Jungle Book winning a visual effects Oscar at this years academy awards. Beauty and the Beast isn't as CGI heavy and thus visually impressive as Jon Favreau's The Jungle Book, but it is still beautiful to look at nonetheless.
The acting as a whole was decent from the films all star cast, with a particularly good performance from Luke Evans as Gaston. Luke Evan's completely outshines everyone in this film including its lead's Emma Watson and Dan Stevens. Evans sings impressively well and without the aid of autotune *cough* Emma Watson *cough*. This overall theatrical performance steals the entire show and completely makes this film worth remaking.
Also as a whole the film is well directed by Bill Condon, slowing the pace to give way to more character development and to express the time taken for the two title characters to fall in love. The controversial (to certain countries) direction taken with LeFou was done in such a delicate and implicit manner which was good to see, and also made this film feel more contemporary.
Overall, Beauty and the Beast does all it needed to do. It's a well acted and visually stunning film that tells the same story from 26 years ago. I commend Bill Condon and Luke Evans for their work on this film, and thanks to them this remake isn't just a heartless cash grab. It may not be the most impressive of the live action remakes, but is by far the most enjoyable in my own opinion.