Directorial Letdown for film with many strong elements

Rating: 8/10 (17 March 2017)

A solid B. Which is slightly disappointing considering the original film is an A+ classic nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars. Much of the script was reworked and rewritten for this new version, many of what I feel are the most powerful and memorable bits of dialogue were reworded and lost their power in the process. On the other hand, this film added a lot of background action and backstory to nearly all the characters (even adding a few new characters) which brought a lot of life to the production, certainly helping to flesh out the Beast and his servants in particular, though even Gaston, Maurice, and Belle got more to work with.
To my surprise, none of the performances stuck out as bad. Though Watson looked a little tentative during the earlier musical numbers, she delivered a fine performance through to the end of the film (though I found myself hoping she'd be more feisty like her animated counterpart). Dan Stevens as the Beast was a revelation, adding humor and depth to the character. While I thought when listening to the soundtrack that most of the new songs were dreadful, the new showstopper "Evermore" was beautifully executed by Stevens and became one of the most effective moments of the movie. Luke Evans made a marvelous Gaston, Josh Gad created a shockingly multilayered LeFou, and Ewan McGregor was pitch perfect as Lumiere. The funniest moments of the film easily went to Gad, Stevens and Ian McKellen, who played Cogsworth.
My biggest complaint is the noticeable absence of the joyous, brilliant "Human Again" number written for the original film, cut, added to the subsequent Broadway production, then re-edited back into the film. Instead, it was replaced by a rather sad sounding song called "Days in the Sun" with effectively the same theme.
Overall, my problem was neither with the actors or the design (which was stellar; I could have gazed at the detail on the set for days), but with the writing and directing. Whose idea was it to make Audra McDonald do an Italian accent, making all the wardrobe's lines clunky and unfunny? Most of the new songs don't hold a candle to songs written for the original film or the Broadway production. Belle and Maurice's new backstory felt oddly placed and a tad contrived. Given all this new material, it would have been fun to see director Bill Condon take some risks, but they never came. Even the way certain scenes were shot seemed uninspired. I enjoyed a great deal of the new material, I loved the life it breathed into the supporting characters, but they should have either gone all the way with it or not done it at all. Most distracting is that the Beast was done digitally rather than with makeup - it took you right out of the famous supposed-to-be-stunning dance scene. Stevens was on set acting with dots on his face, offering eyelines, and delivering a great performance. It's a shame they felt they couldn't do it practically.