There is a trend going on right now with Disney films, that
they are redoing their animated classics in live-action – Alice In Wonderland,
Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, The Jungle Book and now the latest in this trend Beauty
And The Beast. I did not know what to expect of it because I had different
reactions to them all. Alice In Wonderland is a bit of a guilty pleasure for
me, though I will admit Looking Glass was bad; Maleficent was a disappointment,
I really wanted to like that one; I did not like Cinderella at all (watch Ever After instead); I thought I
was going to hate The Jungle Book but I surprisingly enjoyed it. This one was
going to be difficult for me because the 1991 Disney film Beauty And The Beast
is one of my favourite films of all time.
So how do I feel this film? Honestly I spent the first half
being pretty annoyed as it was just carbon copy with minor changes, but I just
accepted it by the time I got to the second half and just pretended I was
watching a play of the movie instead. But then I have to admit there was one really
great scene that got me emotional towards the end. Not enough to make me love
the film, in a way it highlights my biggest problem with the film, I’ll get to
it later and don’t worry I won’t spoil it.
The majority of it is pretty much a copy of the 1991 film,
they might as well have used the same storyboards. The problem though is not so
much that it redoes the same scenes, it’s that they get lost in translation,
not enough effort is put in to create the same feelings. The best example comes
from my favourite scene in the 1991 film when Belle searches the forbidden west
wing. It’s slow, it’s dark, we hear this creepy music and she hesitates, as she
knows she shouldn’t be doing this. The place looks trashed and you can feel how
dark it is especially when she walks into a table. When she sees the enchanted
rose, she takes the glass off and tries to touch it. The Beast suddenly stops
her and begins trashing more furniture and yells at her to get out. In the new
film it goes too fast, she doesn’t hesitate at all to go in there and the
creepy music is not used. She looks around for a second and then she sees the
enchanted rose and merely touches the glass. The Beast sees her and accuses of
tampering with it and shouts at her to get out. This is the moment that’s
supposed to scare Belle out of the castle, in the original you understand why
the Beast is angry as he personally warned her not to go there and she could’ve
destroyed the rose. At the same time it’s genuinely frightening when he lashes
out at her, of course she’d run out of there. After she runs out, you can see in
his body language that he regrets what he had just done. Here however, she
barely touches the glass and looks at the rose, there was nothing to indicate
that she was going to tamper with it. Also there’s less understanding, as he
did not warn her about the west wing, the servants did that this time. He also
doesn’t lash out at her as hard, he just shouts and tells her to get out,
that’s certainly no more hostile than there earlier encounters. This is just
one of many examples of scenes that they copied with at least 50% less effort.
I lost count over how many cut-to-blacks this film has.
Visually this film is really nice to look at. Many of the
sets are well designed, the castle especially with all the little details. However the environments of the
locations aren’t well explored that you notice at times that it’s shot on a sound stage. The
CGI effects for the Beast is not that great, I don’t understand why they couldn’t
use prosthetics, you could’ve saved legendary make-up artist Rick Baker from
his early retirement. The best CGI goes to the animate objects, sure the
designs were pretty creepy this time but I did buy them as genuine moving
objects – the mechanics on the clocks look realistic and the teapot and cup
look like real china. Be Our Guest was a visually stunning moment.
The acting all-round was more or less on the same level,
they are great actors but the issue I have is that I’m always aware that they
are playing the parts. I don’t see Belle in this film, I just see Emma Watson
playing Belle in this film and it’s like that for everyone. It seems like all
these big named actors were putting on performances for theatre instead of an
actual film. It’s kind of bad that I think the characters in an animated film
feel more like real people than the ones played by real people. I don’t care
how much they expand on their backstories or how many additional character-building
moments they are given; if they don’t act natural I’m not going to be invested
in them. They’re never boring however, you can tell everyone had a lot of fun
making this, so at times they share that enjoyment with you. The
strongest performances are from Kevin Kline as Maurice and Josh Gad as Le Fou, I guess
that helps that their characters are the most different from their animated
counterparts, they're less goofy and are a little more realistic. The singing is not the greatest either, not Russell Crowe from Les Miserables or
Peirce Brosnan from Mamma Mia levels of bad, but not good compared to the singing in the
original. The best singing comes from Audra McDonald, whom is a soprano but
she’s not given enough to sing.
In terms of what this added (again not to spoil the film),
there are about four new songs added which were good I will admit, I could see
these fitting into theatre productions quite well. There are some really good additional
scenes like when Maurice and Belle work on a music box together and they
mention her mother and a pretty unpleasant scene with Gaston and Maurice.
There’s a scene that could’ve taken this film in a unique direction,
unfortunately it doesn’t go anywhere and adds nothing except to try and expand on
Belle’s past which kind of ruins the subtle moment she had with her father at
the beginning. Then there is the big scene towards the end that made me tear
up, it was a real heart-breaking scene. It was built up quite well and when it
happens it lets it play out. Very clever and by far the best scene they did in
this film. So why is the best scene it’s biggest problem? Because it’s a moment
that does not involve Belle or the Beast and it made me realise I how much
didn’t really care about them here. I love Belle and the Beast, they are awesome
characters because in the original they are allowed to be characters. They have
genuine emotions that you feel in all of their scenes and you feel their
chemistry even in scenes without dialogue. Here despite being ‘more developed’
they feel still feel shallow, again it’s because they don’t feel like real
people and their chemistry is non-existent.
I apologise that I keep making so many comparisons to the
original but it’s very difficult not to. This film keeps reminding me of the
original, it keeps redoing it but not as well with minor changes and additions
that aren’t strong enough to let this film stand on it’s own merits. Honestly,
this film only works for me as like seeing a stage theatre version of a film
you like. In fact if you watch this film without seeing the original, you’d
probably think you are watching a stylised film adaptation of a musical play like
2004’s Phantom Of The Opera. If you bare that in mind you’ll enjoy this
just fine, it’s not bad by any means but it won’t stand the test of time. The
1991 movie however is a timeless classic.
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