Director Bill Condon
Staring Emma Watson, Dan Stevens, Luke Evans
Rated PG
Score 4/6

Disney’s animated classic takes on a new form, with a widened mythology and an all-star cast. A young prince, imprisoned in the form of a beast, can be freed only by true love. What may be his only opportunity arrives when he meets Belle, the only human girl to ever visit the castle since it was enchanted.

Heading towards the release of this live action remake of Beauty and the Beast I did a little bit of preparation reviewing the Disney animated movie and a Franco-German production from 2014 based on the traditional fairy tale La Belle et la Bête. Oh, and if you are wondering by my count (looking it up on Wikipedia) there is 11 movies that are interpretations of the Beauty and the Beast fairy tale the earliest being a Merrie Melodies animated short film from 1934.

This new live action remake is a warm hug, just like the movie that was released in 1991 and is probably just as good despite any of the ‘additions’ that the new filmmakers have made to the story. The major ‘additions’ was that this time Belle to get her own backstory (which seemed to amount to about five minutes of screen time, which will probably be expanded on in the DVD release with any potential deleted scenes) and that the character LaFou was gay, though going by the song Gaston I believe that Disney knew that the character was gay it just could not be acknowledged back in 1991. And after watching a Disney version of Beauty and the Beast in about a month I agree with some of the points that Screen Junkies made about Belle in their Honest Trailer for Beauty and the Beast.
Now that being said about Belle, Emma Watson did give a good performance, it it enough to shake the image of Hermione Granger? Probably not, it might have even embraced it just a little. As for Luke Evans and Dan Stevens as Gaston and the Beast? Judging by their looks they could have easily played each other’s roles. Josh Gad gave a good performance and there were a few cool casting choices in the beast’s household.

All I really think that Beauty and the Beast remake did was wet Disney’s appetite for making live action remakes of their entire animated catalogue in the coming years.