Beauty and the Beast *** (2017, Dan Stevens, Emma Watson, Luke Evans, Josh Gad, Kevin Kline) – Movie Review

Director Bill Condon’s fairy tale musical is romantic, warm and good hearted. It has a charming, sweet nature that is easy to like and hard to take against. It is slickly and smoothly made in a very handsome production, with the two sweet lead performances of Emma Watson and Dan Stevens as Belle and the Beast helping to make up for some easy laughs, and slack comedy writing and slack support acting.

The story’s dark fairy tale elements are well respected and well taken care of, but the comedy involving Josh Gad’s camp sidekick character and the teapot/clock etc take it into another, lesser movie, though a crowd-pleasing one. Personally, I’d have been happier if this new version was not a musical, but that probably is a a crowd-pleasing decision too. I’d also have been happier if Disney’s first openly gay character wasn’t camp, a villain and called Le Fou.

Luke Evans’s narcissistic villain Gaston is fun (though the film can’t make up its mind whether he’s a comic or true villain) and Kevin Kline adds clout as Belle’s haunted dad. Watson gives a nice, brisk, capable performance, and Stevens is outstanding under all the makeup as a commanding, impressive Beast.

A couple of mediocre songs hold up the movie at the start, but it does pace up, get cracking and deliver, especially in the rooftop standoff between Beast and Gaston.

It doesn’t replace the 1991 classic animation of Beauty and the Beast, but then how could it? Though supposedly a live-action remake of it, there is so much CGI and animation in this new version, and some of the same songs, so it seems more like a repeat or re-run than a remake.

It would be a much better, more original movie if Stephen Chbosky and Evan Spiliotopoulos’s screenplay had dumped Lumiere (voice of Ewan McGregor, with a useless ‘French’ accent), Cogsworth (Ian McKellen), Mrs Potts (Emma Thompson, having a laugh, dearie!), Plumette (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), and Cadenza (Stanley Tucci). But, then again, these are fun, typically old-style Disney entertainment elements for the kids.

Alan Menken returns to score this live-action adaptation, with new recordings of the original songs, plus new songs written by Menken and Tim Rice.

Director Jean Cocteau’s 1946 world cinema classic La Belle et la Bête [Beauty and the Beast], based on the famous fairy tale story by Mme Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont (1711 – 1780), is a magical masterpiece that casts a unique sensuous spell.

Disney’s film, which troubled conservative countries because of its ‘gay moment’, opened in China uncut and on top of the box office. But in Malaysia, censors asked for the scene to be cut, Disney refused and the film has not been released. In Russia, the film is rated to be restricted to age 16 and over.

It became the 29th film to take over $1000 million at the worldwide box office.

Emma Watson became the first recipient of a gender-neutral Best Actor award at the May 2017 MTV Movie Awards. Helen McCrory complained: ‘It seems like there will be an awful lot less awards, which no actress likes to hear.’

© Derek Winnert 2017 Movie Review

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