Movie Reaction: Beauty and the Beast

Formula: Beauty and the Beast * Into the Woods

Disney, more than any other movie studio relies on its legacy for its success. It's as image-conscious a company as you will find. There's this catalog of films [mostly animated] that will keep the studio afloat no matter what. This was literally the case for years. Theatrical re-issues of classic films were about the only thing Disney had going for it from the mid 1970s to mid 1980s. It's really not a surprise that they are now using the same animated movies for a new revenue stream in the form of live-action remakes. It began with Alice in Wonderland in 2010: basically a sequel to the animated movie. Since then, there's been remakes of Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, The Jungle Book, and now, the first remake from the Disney Renaissance: Beauty and the Beast.

It's very easy to be cynical about Disney and this strategy in particular of repackaging the same stories. I'm a fan of it though because they keep looking for new ways to tell the stories. Alice in Wonderland, for all its faults, paired well with Tim Burton's sensibility to make something distinctive. Maleficent told the Sleeping Beauty story from the villain's perspective. Cinderella grounded the story in an intriguing way. The Jungle Book was a visual effects feast. The Beauty and the Beast remake doesn't have anything like that. It's as slavish a retelling of the story as Disney has done so far. It's hard to blame them. The 1991 film can rightly be called one of their masterpieces*. Director Bill Condon has no incentive to start tampering.

*Btw, I won't be going into a plot summary in this Reaction, because the story is the same and if you haven't seen the animated movie before, shame on you.

Before I get into picking at a pretty good movie, I'd like to focus on everything it does right. First and foremost is the casting. Emma Watson is the best choice for Belle that I can think of. It sounded right as soon as I heard about it over a year ago and that hasn't changed. Hearing her sing throughout this film has increased my "what if" curiosity about if she had actually been cast in La La Land instead of Emma Stone*. Dan Stevens is a good Beast. I only know him from Legion currently, but I'm sure he'd feel like an even more natural fit had I seen him in Downton Abbey as well. Luke Evans eases into the Gaston role without missing a beat. Josh Gad is an obvious [in a good way] pick for LeFou. Kevin Kline is an almost counter-intuitive choice for Belle's father Maurice. Either that, or I just haven't accepted that Kevin Kline has aged into "old man" roles. I love the voice cast of the furniture in the castle. Emma Thompson (Mrs. Potts) is wonderful always in everything she does, and if you disagree with me you are wrong. She's one of the few actresses who I could accept taking over for Angela Lansbury. Ewan McGreggor (Lumiere) and Ian McKellen (Cogsworth) bicker with each other well. Even Audra McDonald (Madame Garderobe) and Stanley Tucci (Maestro Cadenza) get to play big in entertaining ways. And Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Plumette). I love Gugu Mbatha-Raw. I have nothing but good things to say about the casting.

*For the record, I'd've loved either choice.

There are certain moments in the movie that are spot on. If you don't get anything out of the ballroom scene, you might be dead inside. The same goes for when everyone in the castle gets transformed back. The music that you know and love is still there. I was most impressed with "Something There". I believe there's only one new song and it's fine. The production design does a good job bringing the animated structures to life. Both the village and castle look familiar in the right ways.

There's a reason why all the previous live-action remakes have tried to do something different than the animated originals: a reason other than avoiding self-plagiarizing. What works in an animated movie doesn't always work in live-action. In this film, "Be Our Guest" was nice, but it doesn't match the spectacle of its animated counterpart. The ballroom scene doesn't feel quite as grand nor "The Mob Song" as menacing. There's a scale that this could never match. Too often, it felt like Emma Watson was responding to a more impressive scene than she was in. Almost like she was green-screened in like Mowgli in The Jungle Book last year. Many scenes or bits of dialogue felt required rather than natural.

While the production design was a good interpretation of the animated film, it revealed how impractical it all was. The castle doesn't make much sense. The village set seemed small. Impressively built, but small. The same angles kept being used which gave me the impression that it was a limited set. For a $2 million indie, I'd forgive that a lot more readily than a $160 million blockbuster with major studio backing.

The few attempts to expand the story fell flat. In all honesty, Beauty and the Beast works better the less you have to think about it. The curse itself is confusing. How Belle ends up in the castle is forced. The movie basically glorifies Stockholm Syndrome. The attempts to explain things further or try to place this story in the real world (so much talk of Paris and the plague) highlight how silly it all is.

Beauty and the Beast isn't as good as the original film. That's unquestionable. How good does it need to be to be a success though? Would you enjoy a version that is 50% as good? Does it need to be at least 80% as good for it to still have an effect? Whatever that bar is for me, the Beauty and the Beast clears it just barely. It's a good film, more comparable with Into the Woods than the 1991 original. Bill Condon, for better or worse, has made the best replication possible, with a cast good enough to make me want to revisit it despite the flaws. It's not brilliant. It's good. Mileage may vary.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend