Just watch the original

Rating: 6/10 (26 March 2017)

The original of this film is probably up there in my Top 10 of all time, so I knew this remake would not be as good. All I wanted was for this one to not desecrate my childhood memories of the original. By that measure, this film was a success. It isn't so bad that it ruins the original.
All actors play their role reasonably well, and for me the standout being Luke Evans as Gaston and Emma Watson did a decent job as Belle. Disney brought its usual flavour of production and most of the original songs translated adequately to the live-action format. The opening number, 'Belle' worked the best in my opinion. However, some of the songs really paled in comparison to their original counterparts. 'Be Our Guest' I thought was the weakest of the lot. Disney also shoe-horned in a few new songs which for me didn't really add anything. Also, a few plot differences and new script twists seem to have been manufactured just to make the film a little less of a carbon copy of the original.
Leaving the cinema though, I could only see this film as a pretty vanilla, paint-by-numbers rerun, which in no way exceeded the original. In that sense, I end up thinking, what was the point of this? Are Disney simply just going to go through their back catalogue re-releasing things as live action? It seems that might be the case.
There's certainly nothing new here, and nothing that makes the animation look dated or comparatively weaker. As a stand-alone film, I wish I could think of a better adjective than 'OK', but that is simply how the film makes me feel. It will no doubt make the Disney shareholders happy as it will rake money in, but for us that hold the original in such high regard, this is a second-rate copy.