Beauty and the beast 2017

[Elton John]

Reviews are in. Common complaints include

-The added plot segments were unnecessary
-The new songs are dull, old songs inferior to the original.
-Emma Watson miscast as Belle
-The movie is dull and lifeless.

Sigh. I'll give it a rent eventually.

[TheLionPrince]

The Internet is in flames following reports in which director Bill Condon confirmed that Gaston's sidekick LeFou will be the first openly gay in a Disney film. While I am not heavily a supporter of LGQT rights, a character's sexuality should have no place in a family film.

A drive-in theater in Henegar, Alabama announced they will not screen the movie in theaters, and even Russia is considering whether to allow the film to be shown if the officials deem it violated a measure of having "elements of propaganda of homosexuality" in children's films.

Hundreds of people have posted on social media that they or their families were planning on seeing the film, but following the revelation, they are boycotting the movie. Those who are against the backlash are claiming the film supports bestiality which is actually false. The Beast was originally human and was enchanted to become a beast as a reflection of his arrogant, selfish personality. You can read one Facebook conversation posted on the article about the backlash for yourself.

As for me, personally, the controversy is probably overblown and even a negative review from Indiewire claims the gay undertones is not as blatant as they are reported to be. I do remember hoopla thrown over Gobbler's throw-away line over not getting married that director Dean DeBlois confirmed as him coming out in How to Train Your Dragon 2 and Ellen DeGeneres claiming there was a transsexual stingray in Finding Dory which sparked some pre-release outrage, but turned out to be a joke after the film's release.

[PridelandsPhantom]

It's really sad that Disney decided to be so in your face with it. I have nothing against those who identify as gay and some have said "well so and so is gay" in the past without there being anything officially said about it. There are plenty of role models for gays in the media that are positive, why do just to do it? I won't go into more personal convictions as I'm not really happy for flame wars, but personally it's getting out of hand. Can we just leave political and such statements out of movies? Beauty and the Beast never endorsed there being be*stality, because as someone pointed out Adam (or the beast) is a human underneath it. That's kind of like someone saying the same things about one of my other favorite novels, Tiger's Curse. The prince is human underneath the curse. Emma Watson is a great actress, but I don't see her as the naive, yet innocent Belle.

[UncoordinatedPisces]

Reviews are in. Common complaints include

-The added plot segments were unnecessary
-The new songs are dull, old songs inferior to the original.
-Emma Watson miscast as Belle
-The movie is dull and lifeless.

Sigh. I'll give it a rent eventually.

I'm posting a video review on Youtube soon, my view on the movie is a bit more positive than that but pretty close to my thoughts. I enjoyed going to see it regardless though.

[TheLionPrince]

Just to get the elephant in of the room, the supposed "gay" moment was at the very end when LeFou dances with another man. The scene lasts at least two seconds.

I wrote a film review for this film, but eventually I decided to organize the remake into pointing out the highlights and the low points. Overall, the 2017 remake was literally a shot-for-shot remake. What the film told in 80 minutes (4 for end credits), the remake tells in about 120 minutes. That's because of added subplots meant to deepen Belle and the Beast's relationships, as well as new songs composed by Alan Menken and Tim Rice. It's hard to judge the film by its own merits since the film wants to adhere so much to the original film that they even lifted the same exact dialogue.

When it comes to remakes, I'm usually supportive of them, especially when there is room to improve and expand upon the original film. The filmmakers should have followed the example that Jon Favreau took with last year's The Jungle Book. They adapted the best elements from the 1967 film as well as from Rudyard Kipling's novellas, but created a distinguishingly new storyline that was more tighter and coherent. Here, in Beauty and the Beast, the storyline is basically the same. The subplots were more of add-ons to the original story rather than take it into an entirely new and interesting direction.

By the end of the film, it made me feel like a kid again and made me more appreciative of Disney's 1991 classic (although I already was). Overall, the film is a faithful remake, but it doesn't quite capture the heart, magic, and charm since there's little room for anything surprising.

Highlights:

• Still to this day, people think the Beast was cursed at eleven years old because Lumiere stated "ten years we've been rusting..." and the Beast having until his 21st birthday to break the curse. Actually, Lumiere was referring to the time the servants weren't using their skills because the castle had no guests. This easily could have included time when they were all humans. The glass painting in the prologue clearly depicts the prince (before he was enchanted) as a young man, perhaps in his teens. In this remake, they expand on the prologue and the prince is clearly a young man.
• The writers really improved on Maurice's character. Maurice in the original film was mostly for comic relief and sort of buffoonish. In the remake, he is portrayed by Kevin Kline where he is a Gepetto-esque inventor. He becomes more relatable and sympathetic since they expound upon the loss of his wife (Belle's mother).
• Maurice and Belle had stronger chemistry and it was well-captured in a span of minutes than Belle's chemistry (or lack thereof) with the Beast in a whole hour.
• Luke Evans was well-cast as the vain, but handsome Gaston.
• Ever since it was announced, I felt Josh Gad was a perfect casting choice for LeFou. However, his characterization was changed slightly. In the animated film, while he wasn't entirely stupid (despite his name being "fool" in French), he was a bumbling sidekick. Here, he is more intelligent and has a few witty one-liners.
• While the new Alan Menken-Tim Rice songs aren't even as memorable as the original songs, I did really like the new song, "Evermore".
• The production design was rather fantastic.
• Ewan McGregor and Emma Thompson did justice to the original songs with their renditions of "Be Our Guest" and "Beauty and the Beast".

Low points:

• Emma Watson's singing voice was heavily auto-tuned throughout the song, "Belle". It made her voice sound so robotic and mechanical.
• Perhaps, to avoid venturing into the uncanny valley, Lumiere, Cogsworth, Mrs. Pott, Chip, and the other servants are rendered to become more realistic objects. Unlike their animated counterparts, they don't have distinguishable, exaggerated facial features so they don't look expressive enough.
• Belle and the Beast lacked chemistry in this film. Dan Stevens injected some humor into the Beast as he reforms, and Watson does her thing, but the romance goes through the motions following the original film beat for beat.
• The visual effects during the "Be Our Guest" felt forgettable.
• The cover version of the song, "Beauty and the Beast", by John Legend and Ariana Grande doesn't even compare to the original version by Celine Dion and Peabo Bryson. Celine and Peabo had chemistry and emotion in their version. Legend mostly copies Bryson almost note for note, and I didn't feel the two were really singing with each other. It's good, but not great.

[Squeely]

While I am not heavily a supporter of LGQT rights, a character's sexuality should have no place in a family film.

Gotta disagree with you there. I see nothing wrong with same-sex characters or couples being in family films. We've had heterosexuality flaunted in films for nearly a century, so I see no reason why gay characters can't also share some time in the spotlight. Let's take Beauty and the Beast as an example: nearly the entire thing is a heterosexual romance! I see nothing wrong with children seeing a homosexual couple do everything Belle and Beast do, and dare I say, such representation helps bigtime in normalizing LGBT couples and erasing homophobia as a whole. And that normalization is incredibly important when LGBT people are still treated as lesser than cishet-normative people to this day.

And to further clarify, obviously anything explicit, whether hetero- or homo-, would be bad to show to children. But just a dance, or holding hands, or a kiss, I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

Onto what I thought of the remake:
I thought it was well-done, and the film is beautiful. I especially liked the new song Beast sings, and how they patched up a lot of the plotholes. As for Emma Watson, I wouldn't say her performance was all that bad. While not anywhere near "Best Actress" or anything, I found her easily passable, and did enjoy her performance here and there. I also liked that Maurice got a lot more characterization, and that Le Fou went from seeming mostly-brainless to delivering clever quips and overall being a more engaging character. Josh Gad's performance was a lot of fun. All in all, I'd give Beauty and the Beast a solid 9/10.