Hairy Pouter and the Reluctantly Redundant Remake

Rating: 6/10 (28 March 2017)

Watching Bill Condon's Beauty and the Beast as an adult is like running into your best friend from grade school at a bar. They're hammered, decked out in a circa 2001 Avril Lavigne Sk8ter Boi outfit and faux-hawk, but surprise: they work as an insurance claims adjuster, and make awkward, drunken conversation about linoleum. Yep. Hear me out. Heady nostalgia, amusement (both uncomfortable and sincere), but all tampered by a vaguely alienating sense of antiquated tackiness and boredom. This is your old friend, and you'll always love them in spite of... them. But did you really need to run into them again like... this? This is the battle of Beauty and the Beast 2.0: not as beastly as your worst fears would have it, but a far cry from the beauty that once was.
'Tale as old as time' doesn't work as well when it's a tale barely older than the average viewer, begetting the invariable 'Too Soon!' griping. Sadly, in this case, the peanut gallery may be justified. It's rare to see a film tiptoeing around its fan following so fearfully, every frame oozing desperation to validate its own existence. From the first notes of the soundtrack, there's an uneasy balance between near shot-for-shot slavishness and defiant new beats. But, for every closed plot hole (so THAT'S why no one in the village noticed the gigantic, deserted castle!), there's awkward, superfluous character exposition (did Belle really need to be saddled with a 'disappeared parent' subplot, a-la Amazing Spider-Man?). The original songs are, naturally, too darn good not to make hearts soar, but they're staged with varying degrees of imagination and vibrancy. New tunes range from cutely forgettable to downright cringe-worthy (let's just say the Beast's solo romantic ballad plays better on Broadway...), while inexcusably lame tweaks to Gaston's legendarily raucous tavern ditty will have you pulling out every last inch of you covered in hair. And so on. More than almost any adaptation, Condon courts an invariable game of constant compare/contrast that he's fated to lose (would you want to go toe-to-toe with the first animated Best Picture nominee?), conjuring an audience commentary of "Meh, that was better in the original" to "Did we really need that?" Throw in some lurching pacing - how can a film 40 minutes longer than its predecessor feel so much more rushed? - and staid, wooden sensibilities, with only glimmers of the original's whimsy or the playfulness of 2016's Jungle Book, and you've got one squirmy audience.
It's a shame, because Condon's fairy tale unearths plenty of magic when it's allowed to breathe. If there's one strain that feels fully fleshed out in live action, it's the poor provincial town's bullying of Belle, seeing her unmarried, innovative intellect as beyond 'odd,' but as a downright ideological threat verging on witchcraft. It's this focal point that lends surprising sincerity and sweetness to her budding romance with her ferocious captor - she connects with him as a fellow outsider, passionate, but fearfully clueless about how to societally integrate. Condon also finds surprising poignancy in the Beast's household workers resigned to living as animated objects as penance for taking no accountability in preventing his warped, cruelly spoiled upbringing. A subtle nature/nurture conversation of a social environment's power to corrupt through passive-aggressive teasing or shameful inactivity? Now that feels like classic Disney!
If the prospect of 2017 special effects bringing the magic to life were a selling point, it's still a mixed bag. It's ironic that the film's prologue cautions against gaudy, superficial excess, as Condon's film is almost exhaustingly lavish, but too loud and busy to settle into the painstaking elegance of its predecessor. The surreal twisty, Jean Cocteau decor is pleasingly intricate, but almost perennially muted by murky, grey lighting, while the vaguely creepy anthropomorphic household utensils take considerable acclimatizing to. Even the 'Be Our Guest' showstopper manages the paradox of looking ferociously expensive but oddly unspectacular. Still - Condon does nail The Dance, and it alone is transcendently lovely enough to keep the film afloat, and then some. No, you're twirling around humming the theme. Hmmpff.
You want to love Emma Watson's Belle. You really do. But, Hermione hangover aside, she feels distressingly miscast - as sullen and sunken as her wincingly autotuned singing voice, she's too caustic to capture more than dribbles of Belle's warmth, spunkiness, and bubbly braininess. Trading Harry for Hairy, Dan Stevens makes a superb Beast, dubious CGI aside. His Beast is a grumbling hipster, his former effete condescension bleeding into his brooding making his character arc all the more charmingly self-aware. Though far from the size of a barge (no "biceps to spare" here, amusingly), Luke Evans swings solidly at Gaston's seismic chauvinism. But, although he hits the musical notes, he's too tentative a scene-chewer, and lacks the thunderous charisma to properly sell the narrative's masterful deconstruction of toxic masculinity (it's no wonder LeFou has to bribe these townspeople to - literally - sing his praises). Speaking of: 10 points to Josh Gad, singlehandedly stealing the show with a pitch-perfect deluge of adorably fawning silliness. While Kevin Kline's softly quirky Maurice is pleasantly winning, his additional screen time adds little to the film. Indeed, most of the comedic and emotional lifting is left to the charming voice cast, and Ewan McGregor, Ian McKellen, Emma Thompson, Stanley Tucci, and others all brim with the mountainous charm and silliness you'd hope for.
There is beauty within Condon's film, but it's largely enshrouded by oodles of overstuffed visual dazzle and fumbling mimesis that fail to disguise the the film's heart isn't quite there. It's an amiable diversion, but a worthwhile remake? Let's just say time won't be kind to this tale. But let's be honest: it's Beauty and the Beast. Reviews or not, you're probably going to obstinately check it out anyway, muttering "surely it can't be as bad as all that." And you know what? Be my guest.
-6/10