Not a bad adaptation

Rating: 7/10 (2 April 2017)

It has to be said, Disney's live action adaptations of their classic animations haven't really worked, 'The Jungle Book' was horrendous and the less said about the diabolical reworking of 'Pete's Dragon' the better. However, they've finally managed to redeem themselves with the newly released 'Beauty And The Beast'. Apart from a few niggles, I thought it was very good. It is easily the closest adaptation, and is extremely faithful to the award winning 1991 animated film. Emma Watson was magnificent as Belle and her singing voice was wonderful (I understand she actually had some singing lessons from the original Belle, Paige O'Hara). It is difficult to comment on Dan Stevens portrayal of the Beast as so much was CGI, but he was suitably well cast as the handsome Prince when he was visible on screen. Lumiere the candelabra and Cogsworth the clock were voiced by Ewan McGregor and Sir Ian McKellen respectively, and as much as I loved Ewan's singing in 'Moulin Rouge', he was hindered in this role by the awful French accent he had to put on, which I found wavered on and off occasionally. The teapot Mrs Potts, so perfectly voiced by Angela Lansbury in the original, was portrayed by Emma Thompson, who I thought sounded like she was trying to impersonate Angela instead of putting her own touch to the character. Luke Evans stars as Gaston and in the classic animation, Gaston was just a self-obsessed, arrogant, simple minded villain, who's determination to be looked on as "the best" and marry Belle, drives him to fight the Beast out of jealousy, and was actually depicted as a comedic character, but in this movie he is far darker and, although retaining his narcissistic and self-centred traits, he is much nastier and the comedic stupidity and arrogance from the original is replaced with a far more manipulative and violent persona. The fight between Gaston and the Beast differs too, from a simple battle of strength and wits culminating in Gaston stabbing the Beast before falling to his death in the animated movie, to Gaston actually shooting the Beast a few times before eventually falling to his death. Now, those who know me know, I don't like change for change sake and was very disappointed at a number of other changes too. The musical numbers, added lyrics to the original numbers, added scenes (especially the scene explaining the reason Belle's mother isn't there, which was pretty pointless as far as I could tell). All the classic well known songs from the original are here, but as I mentioned there are added lyrics to some, and the lyrics in the song 'Gaston' were, at times, almost inaudible. I do understand that sometimes songs are added for timing reasons, but there is a stunning and award winning stage production of 'Beauty and The Beast' which has added songs in it, so I couldn't understand why they had to write brand new songs for this movie rather than just add a couple from the stage production, especially the Beast's number 'If I Can't Love Her', which, in my opinion, would have fitted better than the number he sings in this movie 'Evermore'. Despite the few disappointments, I do have to say that it is a stunning movie, very well made with some excellent performances and doesn't stray too far from the Oscar winning original we all know and love. Worth seeing for sure.