Dead Behind the Eyes

Rating: 6/10 (23 July 2017)

The Best:
1. The color is great.
The Worst:
1. Emma Watson can't act. She has a disconcerting Posh British accent that's markedly different from all the other characters, who sound American, even though they're all supposed to come from the same village. In addition to that, she has one expression throughout the entire film. I kept wondering what a young Julie Andrews-type could have done with this part and it made me wanna cry.
2. Kevin Kline can act but doesn't. As usual when he is on film, Kline underacts to a fault. He too has only one expression during the whole movie.
3. The Beast wears a lifeless digital mask that looks, well, lifeless. Regular make-up would have been so much better. Unfortunately, every time he is on screen, you just can't forget you're looking at a special effect that moves awkwardly, with a voice that's slightly out of sync.
4. Mrs. Pots and the rest of the "enchanted" non-human characters do not benefit from the transition to "live action". In the original version, the teapot, the cup, the candlestick, etc. were some of the liveliest characters. Here, the new animated objects barely have a hint of a face so, without facial expressions, there is no character and, without character, there is no personality.
5. As Jimmy Kimmel once said, "Here in Hollywood, the only thing we value more than diversity is congratulating ourselves for valuing diversity." The producers' politically correct decision to cast Black extras as some of the villagers is not only historically incorrect but distorts the reality of how Black people were treated in 18th Century France.
6. The movie is too kinetic. The camera never stops moving, every scene is broken up into countless cuts, all from different angles. I frequently found myself needing the action to stop and let me breathe, but no. This new B&TB is an assault on your senses a-la Transformers. For what's supposed to be a fairy-tale romance with a heart, this is the wrong stylistic choice.
7. More is not more. The size of the production overwhelms the story. Yes, every buck of the 160 million-dollar production is up there on the screen, but this particular story would have benefited from a simpler production. As it is, it seems the director grabbed every opportunity to unleash a cast of dancing thousands upon the audience, together with giant sets and frantic editing. The intimate story between Belle and the Beast gets buried under the massiveness of it all.