‘Beauty and the Beast’ Review: Time Isn’t Kind to This Tale
There’s little magic left in this stale and elongated remake of the Disney classic in spite of a sumptuous palette of individual pieces
In 1991, after reinvigorating their animation department with The Little Mermaid, the Walt Disney Company put out the spellbinding Beauty and the Beast. So perfect in its execution, storytelling and songs the film cracked its boundaries to become the first animated film nominated for Best Picture. Suffice it to say, any attempt to remake Beauty and the Beast was going to face resistance, but the basic framework of the narrative should have been enough. Director Bill Condon, no stranger to sumptuous period pieces, creates a visually stimulating (albeit swimming in green screen) retread of the popular tale. Unfortunately its misguided attempts to secure Best Original Song nominations bloat like a puffer fish, turning a swift 90-minute movie into a cumbersome two-hour snoozefest.
Belle (Emma Watson) is considered strange by the citizens in her French town. After her father disappears, Belle travels to a mysterious castle where she agrees to stay in exchange for her father’s freedom. On her own, Belle must befriend the castle’s owner, a cursed Beast (Dan Stevens).
Other than the ability to practically print money, Disney hasn’t come up with a cohesive reason behind these live-action remakes. There was hope that they’d use these films to put their characters into the 21st-century. (Disney has enough scholarly criticism written about their depictions of women and minorities to fill a college.) And in spite of public comments from star Emma Watson about the original film’s lack of feminism, and Disney screaming that Le Fou (here played by Josh Gad) was their first openly gay character, the end result doesn’t showcase any of that.
Promotional Image via Disney
When Beauty and the Beast isn’t a shot-for-shot remake of its predecessor, it’s devoting time to things no one asked about. The introduction of a time travel/transporter device – a one and done feature that’s never returned to or mentioned – allows the audience to learn about Belle’s mother, a woman who, in spite of her supposed brilliance that’s talked up like she’s South Park’s Heidi Turner, still conforms to Disney’s “dead mother” paradigm.
Additions to the character’s histories extends to the Beast himself, with the various objects explaining why they were turned into furniture alongside their master. The problem lies in the fact that these addendums are throwaway dialogue exchanges or brief interludes that act as if they exist to hit a runtime.
Belle doesn’t just read, but provides convenient pointy objects to get out of sticky situations. The audience sees her drawing, denoting her presumably enhanced backstory as an inventor, but there’s no Thomas Edison lightbulb by the end. The Beast’s history of child abuse is mentioned in the most oblique terms. And the gay Le Fou thing plays like “someone says it once, and thus it always was.”
It is Gaston whose character is shaded and defined in a way that doesn’t come like it’s crammed in. Luke Evans’ Gaston is just as smarmy and lecherous as his animated counterpart. Evans relishes every creeptastic line the “expectorating” suitor puts out, and his interactions with Josh Gad’s Le Fou keep the film from putting the audience to sleep.
Promotional Image via Disney
For all of Gaston’s liveliness, the two leads are somnambulists. Emma Watson has a sweet voice that wouldn’t have been out of place in La La Land, the movie she turned down (and lost an Oscar) for this. Her Belle is cute, but there’s little in the way of enhanced agency. Stephen Chbosky and Evan Spiliotopoulos’ script relies on Belle instigating the same decisions she makes in the first film, such as forcibly putting herself in a cell as opposed to bargaining with the Beast to release her father. These scenes are nice, but there’s no additional relationship developed between Belle and the Beast; if anything much of what was initially there is removed. There’s still no questioning whether Belle’s affection is associated with her captivity.
The original film laid the groundwork for a workable and believable relationship between Belle and the Beast. Gone is Belle being the one to teach Beast to read (the wealthy Beast proceeds to mansplain Shakespeare to her). Watson and Stevens can’t even muster up a sizzle in comparison to Paige O’Hara and Robbie Benson’s vocal performances. The voice actors, probably because they weren’t seen, infuse love, anger and sadness into their words, inflections and cadences.
Watson and Stevens elicit little more than sighs. Watson’s fine, but Stevens, suffering from Oscar Isaac CGI syndrome, is hobbled. Whether it’s the CGI guise or the autotuned voice, there’s no passion in his performance. The Beast is an angry character, but Stevens performs every line the same way. The addition of an Andrew Lloyd Webber, Love Never Dies-esque ode to sadness and love, does little to make audiences believe this Beast is sensitive, interesting or worth following.
The enchanted voice cast are all blustering and gimmicky in their performances, from Ewan McGregor’s Pepe Le Pew-sounding Lumiere to a grumpy Ian McKellan as Cosgworth. The worst addition is Emma Thompson as Mrs. Potts who tries to copy Angela Lansbury. A pale imitation does not make for a good performance, Emma.
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Those whose love for the original Beauty and the Beast runs deep are already turned off by this rendition. Everything looks beautiful, but the beautiful exterior hides a cold, dull heart.