Entertaining enough, but lacking

Rating: 6/10 (18 March 2017)

Beauty and the Beast is Disney's latest live action remake of one of their animated classics. But unlike Jungle Book, Maleficent, and from what I've heard, Cinderella, which gave us new spins on familiar stories, Disney opted to make this movie a scene by scene remake of the original. With excellent production values and a high caliber cast that includes Dan Stevens, Ian McKellen, Emma Thompson, and Ewan McGregor, Disney certainly delivered an entertaining family film, but it is too similar to the animated movie to really stand out in any way.
The story is unchanged - a mean, selfish prince is cursed by an Enchantress and transformed into a beast until he can learn to love - and someone loves him back. All hope seems lost until a beautiful, intelligent woman named Bell finds his castle in search of her father, who the beast has imprisoned. You can guess what happens next if you don't know.
This Beauty and the Beast is about thirty minutes longer than the original. The extra scenes do provide some interesting background information and resolve some plot holes from the original movie, which is appreciated. But other subplots just fall flat. A subplot about Belle's mother and LaFou (Gaston's buddy) don't really go anywhere. There are also four new songs here and I can't say I can remember a single one of them.
The cast is mostly excellent. Luke Evans is a funny Gaston and Kevin Kline is good as Bell's father. Dan Stevens also gives the Beast emotional depth. Unfortunately the weakest link in the cast is the most important part - Belle. I don't understand how Emma Watson continues to find work - she's a complete bore as an actress and the auto tune for her singing is really obvious. She's good enough, but her love scenes with the Beast aren't convincing. They feel like they are going through the motions.
Even the special effects are a mixed bag. The Beast's facial expressions and movements are not as convincing as they should be. While the living household objects are animated well, they are almost too realistic, which robs them of the character they had in the animated movie.
This Beauty and the Beast is a good film to take your kids to, but it ultimately represents the worst trends in Hollywood nowadays. It's afraid of taking risks and it exploits nostalgia for cash. I can understand why they didn't want to change too much of the original, given that it's arguably their best animated film, but that just begs the question - did this need to be made? I think the answer is no.