Beauty and the Beast - Review

Three words, Pure... Disney... Magic. Disney has really been knocking it out of the park with their recent live-action remakes. Although I did not like Alice in Wonderland and haven't seen either Maleficent or Alice Through the Looking Glass, the trio of Cinderella, The Jungle Book and now Beauty and the Beast have all been great. Before going into the theatre, I was a bit weary for a couple reasons. One, the 1991 Beauty and the Beast was not only a classic, but it was a classic that people still have in their recent memory. While Disney classics like Cinderella and The Jungle Book are about 50 years old at this point, Beauty and the Beast is only 25 years old. Not to mention that it was nominated for Best Picture. Two, the over-hype train. Other than perhaps Logan, this is the most hyped movie of 2017 so far. With seeing constant advertisements for it and hearing nothing but great things, I didn't want my expectations to get too high. Three, the director. As soon as I realized that Bill Condon directed the last two Twilight films, I wasn't very hopeful. So I went in expecting a good movie and left seeing a great one. With a movie like this, a remake of a beloved Disney classic, you need to have a stellar cast and Beauty and the Beast has it. Emma Watson is wonderful. Growing up watching Harry Potter, I believe she was the very first girl I ever had a crush on. So watching her here was a bit odd at first because I know her as Hermoine Granger, but she was a perfect choice. She has the sweet, innocent quirkiness to her to works great for Belle and she obviously has the beauty perfect for the role. Her singing voice is really nice too, however, you can really tell that they did some work to it to make it sound so good. Dan Stevens as the Beast also did a great job. His singing voice was wonderful and he walked the line brilliantly between angry raging Beast and broken, empathic prince who is trying to love again. As for the supporting cast, perfect choices. Luke Evans, Josh Gad, Kevin Kleine, Ewan McGregor, Ian McKellen, Emma Thompson and others were really the perfect choices for their given roles. If they sang, their voices were spot on, if they needed to be funny or be mean, their jokes landed with ease and their fierceness really shined. Step One, get a stellar cast. Done. Disney got it. The second step to make a good live action fairytale is to have great songs, which they did. I won't get too into them for spoiler reasons, but let's just say they added two new songs and removed one from the original. The last thing that needs to happen is to give the film a unique look and again, Disney succeeded. The production design along with the make-up and costuming was truly oscar-worthy. The character designs were updated while still paying homage to the original and the intense moments felt even more... intense. Overall, this might just be the best live-action Disney remake so far. I may need to watch Cinderella again to really give Beauty and the Beast that title, but I really enjoyed this movie. As for saying this is better than the original... that is an extremely tough call. However, by the time I'm writing this review.... I'll say it's better than the original.