It wasnāt beauty that killed the beast
3
By jaywalsh929
Shortly before I saw this highly anticipated remake for the first time, I hear many whispers and opinions about how many believe this film defines Emma Watsons career, to the point where they forgot about the legacy of hermornie in not 7, but 8 Harry Potter films, now to me that would be a disgrace because one movie does not measure up 1 x 8. Emma Watson however IS magnificent as belle, the by far best thing of this movie and she runs away with it. She looks and acts the part to where she feels just as alive and significant as the original cartoon character.
This film as we predicted triumphs in special effects and pleases what meets the eye with its stunning visuals, however its issue is within the characters, the voices and the mannerisms don't measure up to how triumphant they were on screen in the original that took us all away given the fact āa cartoonā made us feel like we were watching an Oscar worthy epic that does get a nod for Best Picture, yes thats right, the first EVER animated feature to be nominated for Best Picture, you would think this was Snow Whiteās doing but you ought to be surprised. For instance we compare Robbie Benson who played Beast in the original, not only did his voice match the charisma and energy but also so did the looks and his presence, his roars, his teeth, even mame was more ferocious. Here Dan Stevens plays a Beast that looks more like Leprechaun from the horror films of the 90ās and his horns are long enough to make for coat racks. Heās rather too silly looking to take as seriously and doesn't make us feel the sympathy that we had towards old beast who yes did have such a brute personality, but he was still lovable because of his inferiority complex and his secret desire for intimacy.
As for 2 other main characters, Gaston & Lefou, played by āLuke Evans & Josh Gadā. Would I have approved of this duo? Not likely, do we the audience (especially kids) feel the need for these 2 to express their potential homosexuality for each other? They act as if they have nothing better to do outside of Gastonās pursuit of marrying belle. The reprise of the Gaston song is not as cheerful and fun as the first and it shows in the actors who don't feel in rhythm or in sync with each other, they feel as if there in it for the check. Cartoon Gaston played by Richard White at least had the masculine opera singer voice that made the Jock figure FEEL like one also. Again the Actors don't match the characters here, its not something Disney would completely care about, but im sure it could fit in their budget to find the right fits, as we learned in Batman you don't have to pay for a Jack Nicholson to play Joker every time.
The movie blossoms when belle is in the castle with the antiques we loved from the original, and the reprise of ābe our guestā does live up to the hype in terms of visual effects and lots of splashing color. Still belle canāt fit all that prepared food in her stomach. The whole films sticks to the script in sequence, as we all know how the story goes and it is orchestrated nicely, it even opens with all the castle folks when they were āhumanā but all dressed up in 1700ās cloaks and wigs, as far as I can remember i didn't recall seeing George Washington and his faithful subjects portrayed in the original. Not entirely necessary here, I did however enjoy the ballroom scene it had a nice touch and also the sequence of the furniture going into combat against the bad guys in the castle was done well, beasts encounter with gaston was also fun, not quite breathtaking like mowgli taking on Sher Khan in last years Jungle Book, but Iāll live.
This film plays on a 3 star scale for me, its good, but not on the par with Jungle Book, nothing here is out of the box thinking nor was their much effort put into this potential splash of a project, its just predictable and the movie is more of a high school play in disguise, which also use the same playbook by using random students, in this case Actors to portray characters. Reason why I compare it to High School stage is because I dated a girl in my Junior year and she wanted to see this with me for the sake of support. Now that I look back on it, I donāt feel much of a difference walking out the door.