Not as good as the original

Rating: 3/10 (9 November 2019)

I thought this movie was alright when I first went to see it, but when watching it again I really realized that I wasn't much of a fan. The acting is sub-par and only a few people in the film can actually sing, so everyone else is auto-tuned so much they sound like robots. The movie is much longer than the original, yet so many important things from the story are cut out, making room for random filler that waters down the story and in my opinion completely ruins it. Everything is just dragged out and honestly boring. Although the sets and some of the costumes are pretty, they don't save the film. Most of the movie is done using CGI, which makes everything just look fake and creepy. All the emotion and movement that could be expressed in the animation of the original movie has been replaced by dead eyed computer generated creatures and actors that often don't seem too invested (although they've done much better in other films). Also, almost every actor had a British accent, even though the film took place in France. So much for making the film "more realistic." There are a few new songs in the movie that are actually pretty good, but they're poorly sung. But the main thing that bothered me about this movie was the character of Lefou. Leading up to the film, there were tons and tons of news articles about how Lefou was going to be "Disney's first openly LGBTQ+ character!" But besides a two-second scene at the end of the film that could be interpreted as the character finding a love interest, the statements weren't true at all. It was mostly just Disney's way of acting like they were including an LGBTQ+ character without actually writing in the representation in fear of angering anyone who was against having LGBTQ+ characters in movies. But in doing so, they also upset the side of their audience that desperately wanted to see that representation. There wasn't really much point in rebooting the old animated film to begin with, but if Disney was going to make another, they should've at least made it good. This film was just a way for the company to cash in on nostalgia and make even more money without anyone having to think. If you want a GOOD live-action Beauty and The Beast musical, just go see the stage show.