Beauty and the Beast 2017
Last year Disney did a “live action” version of The Jungle Book that turned out really well and maybe even improved on the classic animated movie (not really live action since almost everything other than Mowgli was CGI). Rather than a cartoony children’s movie, they turned it into an action movie, barely including the two big songs from the earlier film. But one of the great things about the original Beauty and the Beast is that it isn’t just a kids’ movie, but such a good movie on its own merit that it was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. I watched the original in the last few weeks and it still holds up, though maybe I could quibble about a few things in the plot and Belle is awfully sassy for a prisoner. Still, throw in some very good animation, great vocal performances and the best collection of Disney songs of any movie, and who cares if there are a few problems with the plot? But that also makes it hard to improve upon and the 2017 version barely makes an attempt to do anything but reheat the old movie. This is an expanded version of the movie with more characters, more songs, and more backstory than the original, but so much is the same, even when Lumiere says “She could be the one!” exactly the same way. It would be difficult I guess to try to take a movie so famous for its music and leave the music out, but once you leave it in, it is hard to do anything other than a remake. That’s okay because the story and characters are good, but we aren’t seeing that much new. I didn’t think the household staff characters worked well in lifelike CGI. Lumiere comes out kind of like the flute from H. R. Pufnstuf and generally you lose a lot of the expressions that Disney is so good at getting from animated objects (in Jungle Book the CGI just made realistic animals, but how realistic can a talking candleabra be?). However, the people generally are great and Emma Watson does a very good job, along with her father, played by Kevin Kline. Gaston maybe worked better as a cartoon character. Also the singing isn’t quite as good even though there is more of it featuring more of the characters. A scene with a magic map seems kind of tacked on. In defense of the movie, a lot of the new material seems to come from the original story, the play based on the original movie, or the storyboards from the original movie, so maybe it was in one of those (but also maybe left out of the original for a reason).
Anyway, if you are a fan of the original, you should see this movie and you should like it. It’s definitely a good movie and my eyes watered when some of the familiar songs started playing. The cast has some pretty big stars in it who are fun to watch, even if they are often unrecognizable. And there are some new laughs as a result of the “controversial” gay character. I don’t know that there was really a good reason to remake this movie, but it does add somewhat to the original even while it lacks some of the original’s charms and of course all of the originality.
Written: 17 Mar 2017
Owned on: Blu-ray, Digital