Tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme, Disney remake as awful as usual

Rating: 3/10 (21 October 2018)

Beauty & the Beast is a beast of a movie whose only purpose is to cash into the original. Why even make a remake to Beauty & the Beast anyways? The original is a nearly perfect and timeless classic! Anyways, let's bash this blunder.
What's the story? An arrogant prince is cursed to live as a terrifying beast until he finds true love. Strangely, his chance comes when he captures an unwary clockmaker, whose place is then taken by his bold and beautiful daughter Belle. Helped by the Beast's similarly enchanted servants - including a clock, a teapot and a candelabra - Belle begins to see the sensitive soul behind the fearsome facade. But as time runs out, it soon becomes obvious that Belle's cocky suitor Gaston is the real beast of the piece.
Okay, let's talk about the 2 good things about the movie: first, let's talk about the design of the Beast's castle. While most of the other CGI looks absolutely rancid (which I will get to later on), at least, at the VERY least, they put careful attention to detail on the castle, making it look absolutely gorgeous and unbelievably breathtaking. The other good thing about the movie is Josh Gad as LeFou. He's a very funny and energetic sidekick, and as a bonus touch, he's actually... well, you all know. Let's just say he's a different kind of person. Also, he's one of the only non-British characters in the entire film. Which leads to the elephant of the room about the movie: the casting, except for Josh Gad, is HORRIBLE! I mean, COME ON! Emma Watson as Belle? Not only does she show absolutely ZERO emotion or care in her performance, but her singing is entirely AUTOTUNE. I mean, compare her singing with the original Belle. At least in the 1991 version, there's EFFORT in the performances and the singing. In here, however, it's like all the life and color of the original have been sucked out and replaced with slow and downbeat performances. (That is, except for Josh Gad.) Even the EXPRESSIONS are very pale and dry, and besides, it looks and FEELS like they're just lip-syncing and not actually singing. As for the CGI, it looks very bad for the most part (except for the castle), but nothing is worse than the design of the Beast. WOW. He's horrifying all right, but he's horrifying because his design is so AWFUL. When your ANIMATED Beast is more convincing than your LIVE-ACTION Beast, you know you're screwing up BIG TIME. As for the songs, the updated versions are the same as ever (not to mention this is a shot-for-shot remake of the original) and the new songs only exist to 1, pad the runtime, and 2, to sell soundtracks in stores and on iTunes. I thought Disney cared about their quality for a while, but nope! Turns out the real CEO of Disney is Mr. Krabs, and this film CLEARLY shows that.
In conclusion, Beauty & the Beast is very empty, boring, and is only made to turn in a profit. And apparently, they succeeded in that field, because it was a huge hit! No joke, people, it became the highest grossing domestic non-PG-13 rated film (that is, until Incredibles 2 came out) and it scored over a billion dollars at the box office. So they rolled in the dough with this one, but it didn't reflect in the quality. My suggestion is to stay out of this film and go check out the animated one instead. At least with that film, you'll have a much better viewing experience and you won't regret watching it. Even if you LIKED the original, this movie is the same exact thing, except if it was a downbeat and sorrowful live-action mess. In other words, if you liked the original, you'll definitely hate this one. If you DO wanna see this movie, I'm not stopping you or anything, but you'll love the original much better. What can I say but, there must be more than this provincial movie!