While entertaining, the new Beauty And The Beast can’t top the original
My full review is up now at Frame Rated
The real challenge of adapting Beauty And The Beast is that there’s really not much you can do to modernise it. While Cinderella was able to put a more feminist twist on the Disney original and The Jungle Book effectively raised environmentalist themes that weren’t as deeply explored in its original, there’s just not much director Bill Condon can do to update Beauty And The Beast. Ultimately, his film is a charming and enjoyable take on the fairy tale, but for most of us it’s unlikely to be more memorable or have more impact than the 1991 version.
Parts of it do work very well, and while I found it didn’t best the original I am certain it’ll be a crowd pleaser. When I saw it at the 6:30pm showing at the Cineworld in London’s Leicester Square on opening night, the audience actually applauded at the end. That never happens. Movie audiences aren’t inclined to clap typically, and the last time I can remember it happening was at a live cinema screening of the Doctor Who 50th anniversary special. What that tells me is that this Beauty And The Beast was definitely created with diehard fans in mind, and that it’ll play particularly well for them.
It’s also hard to fault this cast. Emma Watson is about as perfect a Belle as you can picture, Dan Stevens captures the complications of the beast effectively, and Luke Evans is clearly having a great deal of fun with the role of Gaston. The voice work from the actors playing the household objects around the castle is also excellent, but the hyper-realistic CGI of these characters can detract from the emotional undertones of the film. The same can be said for the beast, unfortunately, while there are times when the look of the character works there are also others where it feels like the visual effects are unfinished, detracting from the emotion of some scenes.
There are some changes here that do make a lot of sense, especially when it comes to how the prince and the inhabitants of the castle were cursed in the first place. By having the prince be a young adult rather than a ten-year-old, it makes the decision to curse him seem slightly more believable, and Stevens does a great job showing the harshness of the character’s younger self. There are some positive developments made that give Belle more of a sense of personality too, such as connections to her mother and her past, as well as an inventive streak and a well-rounded sense of direction and ambition. You get the feeling that this version of the character is unlikely to sit still in a castle for long, she has dreams of going to Paris and learning that’ll take her far further than the small village where she’s grown up.
Even with some worthwhile tweaks, it’s difficult to argue that Disney’s new take on the fairy tale brings much that’s new to the table. Re-treading the old story with shots the even look the same doesn’t hold quite as much magic and joy, and new versions of the songs aren’t going to be as memorable as the first time you heard them! It’s a likeable movie but one that is almost too faithful to what came before. There are missed opportunities where it could take risks and chooses not to, and those hoping that it might improve upon the original tale may well leave disappointed.
And what does this film mean for Disney’s plan for more live action adaptations? Beauty And The Beast looks set to make an enormous amount of money and seems to have earned enough critical acclaim and impressed enough fans that Disney won’t be deterred in bringing even more animated classics back to life. Just this week we saw the news that the new version of Mulan may not have any songs (which, while the outrage is understandable, would definitely differentiate it from the already terrific animation) and Jon Favreau’s Lion King has been fast-tracked into production. Aladdin, Cruella and Dumbo are all also firmly in the pipeline, and you can expect Disney to continue to plunder its own back catalogue for adaptations in the future too. If Beauty And The Beast had failed to win audiences over, it may have been cause for concern, but now that one of its biggest animated hits has been revived, Disney won’t be slowing down.
Go here to read my full review of Beauty And The Beast for Frame Rated
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