Still not convinced we need any of these remakes from Disney

Rating: 6/10 (22 March 2017)

Credit where credit is due, I am glad Disney has chosen to go full on musical (after the confusion that was 'The Jungle Book')if you are going to have 7-8 songs in a film, Do it in a theatrical/ musical style so I am glad they have at decided on that.
Gaston and LeFou where hilarious, Gaston is perhaps my favourite Disney character so I was prepared for the worst but I found him to be (almost) the same character and Luke Evans can actually sing! (a rarity in this film but more on that later) Josh Gad was humorous with a nice arc towards the end that I didn't feel was too cheesy.
Ewan Mcgregor and Ian Mckellen had a good back and forth too, with Mckellens final line a favourite for me (Turn me back into a clock!!) The CGI (for the most part) is wonderful to look at and the costumes are great as well. I was a huge fan of the animated version so I was always going to like this film to a certain extent, however...
EMMA WATSON CANNOT SING!!! Her voice was made up of 99% auto tune, it wasn't even hidden well. Emma Stone doesn't have the best singing voice but with the right songs and background music, it works in La La Land (heck she even won an Oscar) 'Belle' is such a powerful song and I am afraid the film lost me in the first 10 minutes as I simply wasn't convinced, Waston did not even look as though she was singing, her mouth shape was not right for the volume that it was meant to be singing. As she sings in most songs, this was a big complaint.
Did anyone else feel the entire film was ticking off plot holes from the animated film? The decadent party showing us the Princes selfishness? The village bewitched explaining the ignorance of the villagers? Gaston behaviour explained by being a war hero? Maybe these are details from the original fable, but to me it felt the director watched 'Everything wrong with...' Youtube video and was correcting everything from the animated version. And what was the deal with Belles mother? that whole section could have been cut and not made one jot of difference to the final story. Another example of filler to flesh out this movie to fulfil a 2 hour running time.
My final complaint was the darkness, this was a very very dark looking film, I saw it in 2D and I felt I was wearing shades. I couldn't make out parts of the film when the camera panned.
All in all a bloated version of the original with some major nitpicks, certainty not the modern masterpiece everyone is raving about but if Zootopia can make over a billion, this will make 2 bil. Do yourself a favour and watch the 1991 version, or watch this version when the hype has died down so you don't get lynched at work when you agree with me (I am writing this reviewing from a cupboard hiding from a work mob!)