However, there are two things I am against, the first being shot-by-shot recreations of genuinely perfect classics (because if we create Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho frame-by-frame, then it won't matter for a second who we cast as Norman Bates). The second one is live-action adaptations of animated films or TV shows.... Well, some of them anyway. Sometimes, it can be an improvement to take an animated film or show that was obviously on a tight budget and therefore had sub-par animation and turn it into a big-budget phenomenon, live-action or animated, hence why Disney's live-action Jungle Book worked loads better than its animated predecessor. However, in this case, when the animation is already an enormous advantage in terms of style, tone, and creativity, why take away that advantage by converting it to live-action? Just one of the many miscalculations in Disney's attempt to continue their stream of success of live-action recreations of their animated classics with Beauty and the Beast, a watered-down, awkward, misguided recreation of easily my favorite animated Disney movie.
The story, for those who don't know, follows Belle, a girl living in a provincial French town where the same thing happens over and over again, where she sings about wanting adventure when she reads books about lovers and romance and.... Ugh, we'll dwell on that in a minute.... while her father creates a music box that he takes out of town to sell when his horse is misguided over to a castle. Here, he finds a bunch of cursed servants turned into antiques, as well as the master of the castle, who was turned into a beast by an enchantress years ago. Belle eventually finds this castle and exchanges her life for his, and the servants see this as an opportunity to break the spell, as the beast must learn to love a woman and earn her love in return before the last petal on a rose the enchantress left him falls in order for the spell to be broken.
Now, I will give this movie a little more credit than Alice in Wonderland by at least saying that they do (to a certain degree) respect the original's story, keeping the same beats, keeping the characters in their places (for the most part), and even adding on a few scenes that do lead to a few occasional moments of character development. However, when it's trying to be the original, it feels rather soulless, mostly because the characters lack any kind of personality. Belle was all about adventure, swordfights, magical realms, and enchantment in the original, and here, she emphasizes more of an interest in romance novels about lovers and Romeo and Juliet and..... COME ON, THAT'S NOT AHEAD OF THE TIMES! IF ANYTHING, THAT'S BEHIND THE TIMES!!!! Worse than that, though, is the beast. Let me put this bluntly: There is nothing beastly about the beast. Whether in the opening or the end when he's human or throughout the film when he's a beast, he remains mostly calm and nonchalant, never having the outrage moments that he has in the original. Lumiere and Cogsworth never have any scenes where they share chemistry, Kevin Kline is a pretty pointless choice as Belle's father, and the rest of the servants are completely forgettable. If there's one cast member giving it their all, though, it's definitely Luke Evans as Gaston; he definitely knew how to bring the comical Disney villain to life here!
The musical numbers range from either watered down recreations of the classic songs from the original or completely forgettable new songs. The village song, Belle, mostly feels like a series of theater extras putting in minimal effort to get their checks (alongside Emma Watson, who mostly gets drowned out in autotune), Gaston's song, while at least slightly amusing, feels like it would have been better on stage, the ballroom dance sequence, aside from that one luminous shot you all remember from that trailer, would pale in comparison to some guy on Youtube recording Dancing with the Stars, and aside from that, you could hold a gun up to my head and I still wouldn't be able to tell you what the new songs were about. The only one that stood out to me was the new version of Be Our Guest; I'd have to rewatch the original to tell you if it was any better, but for a few mere moments, I did feel a sense of inspiration, like the movie, even for a few minutes, knew exactly what it was doing.
And as I mentioned earlier, the conversion from animation to live-action is a major disadvantage here. The original was so vibrant in its colors, so stylized in its backgrounds and designs, and so ultimate in what it took advantage of with its potential for animation, and it's so disheartening to see that get traded in for a film containing two colors, bland designs, and little to no potential for anything advantageous. With animation, the potential for what could be done is unlimited, and time after time, some of the best animators out there, including the people who worked on the original Beauty and the Beast, have blown me away with their astonishing animation. Live-action, despite many filmmakers trying to prove this wrong with their big-budget adaptations, just doesn't have that same advantage. With animation, you can control the environment. In live-action, the environment moreso controls the filmmaking process. In animation, you can control your characters' expressions (at least visually) however you want. In live-action, the advantage of visual expression is handed over to the actors. All of these problems are present in this film, as the expressions are mostly foregone, the landscapes are dull and forgettable, and even the expression on CG servants are extremely limited.
Honestly, I could break this down scene-by-scene if I had to (which I might do at some point), but for this review, I'll say it bluntly: This new version of Beauty and the Beast is a major misstep in Disney's overall impressive attempt to breathe new life into old classics. The characters are empty shells, the songs are nothing to behold, and the conversion to live-action is, in this case, a major disadvantage. It doesn't all fall apart, as there are a few glimmers of inspiration here and there, but for the most part, you're better off watching the original.
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