Review: BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (2017)

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
(FANTASY-ROMANCE/MUSICAL)
★★
Directed by Bill Condon
Starring: Emma Watson, Dan Stevens, Luke Evans, Josh Gad, Kevin Kline, Ewan McGregor, Ian McKellen, Emma Thompson, Nathan Mack, Audra McDonald, Stanley Tucci, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Hattie Morahan, Adrian Schiller
Rated PG for some action violence, peril and frightening images.
129 minutes
Verdict: Although often very impressive to look upon, and the novelty of a lavish live-action musical of this scale notwithstanding, the remake of the 1991 classic too frequently draws comparisons to the superior original.
YOU MAY BE INTERESTED IN BEAUTY AND THE BEAST IF YOU LIKED:
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST  (1991)
THE JUNGLE BOOK  (2016)
MALEFICENT  (2014)
INTO THE WOODS  (2014)
THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA  (2004)

I personally have mixed but strong feelings about Walt Disney Animation's 1991 rendition of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST.  It's gorgeously made with an excellent soundtrack, but the story about a young woman who is locked up by a beast until she "loves" him, and the nerve to act like that's a post-modern feminist revision of a Disney heroine, is maddening.  At 26 years old, it's the youngest of Disney's enduring family favorites to get the "live-action remake" treatment so far and, as opposed the remakes of ALICE IN WONDERLAND, MALEFICENT or THE JUNGLE BOOK, it follows the original with particular closeness.  Ironically, as faithful as it is to the animated version, it's in its considerable weaknesses that it makes the disturbing nature of its central relationship feel less frustrating.  It's not that the script by Stephen Chobsky (PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER) and in-house Disney screenwriter Evan Spiliotopoulos makes sufficient fixes to the plot, but rather that the flamboyant style over substance neuters the impact of the story and characters.  Perhaps what makes the 1991 movie so frustrating is that it's so effective.  The new version, directed by Bill Condon (the director behind the two final installments of the Twilight Saga, DREAMGIRLS and GODS AND MONSTERS, among others), is arguably a serviceable musical fairy tale, but in tying itself so closely to the original, including the use of Alan Menken and the late Howard Ashman's classic songs and even similar dialogue in many scenes, it undercuts any of its own moments with unfavorable comparisons.

Emma Watson is an okay Belle, more wistful and fragile than the one voiced by Paige O'Hara and animated by Mark Henn, a bookish young woman with innovative qualities while her off-kilter father Maurice (Kevin Kline) is an artist in the tiny French village where they live.  Gaston (Luke Evans), a former soldier looking to settle down, attempts to court her, but I guess his arrogance (honestly, he's pretty genteel at first) turns her off to him.  Frankly, I've always felt bad for Gaston, because he's not terribly villainous as far as villains go, and he only starts making some really bad decisions once his patience has run out, but don't most of us?  I guess he is a little grabby in this version, but it's not like he's a total caveman.  Anyway, when Maurice becomes lost on a forest road and discovers a foreboding enchanted castle, the master of the castle, a prince cursed into a beastly form (Dan Stevens of Downton Abbey) imprisons him.  When Belle finds the castle, she offers herself up as a prisoner in exchange for her father, and Maurice returns to the village to attempt to round up help, providing Gaston with what he believes is an opportunity to prove himself or at least manipulate the situation to his favor, but meanwhile, Belle gradually comes to admire the Beast's gruff charms.  Members of the castle staff, transformed into furnishings that conveniently correspond to their names, also help Belle acclimate to life in the castle, led by the flamboyant candelabra Lumiere (Ewan McGregor) and the stuffy clock Cogsworth (Ian McKellen).

Like an adaptation of a well-known book, it's difficult to not bring the comparisons of the original into this movie, especially when, from the prologue and onward, so many of the lines are so similar to the original, with just enough changes and the differences in delivery that it's a little annoying.  If it was an identical rendering of the '91 film but in live-action then it would seem pointless and unimaginative, but where the changes are so minor and even seemingly random, the effect feels like a tease.  Even then, the movie is 45 minutes longer than the animated one; chalk that up to extended dance numbers, a few new songs and a little bit of inconsequential plot expansion; and the characters and everything around them feels very watered down.  Until nearly halfway into the movie, when Belle and the Beast's romance finally begins to blossom in a not entirely organic way, I'd sort of put the Beast in the back of my mind.  He just doesn't seem to matter that much until he does, and when he does matter, Stevens does not rise to the challenge.  In a movie that has Luke Evans, Luke Evans is not the least charismatic presence.  In fact, Evans is pretty charming as Gaston, even if his vocals are conspicuously less robust than those of Richard White.  The point is, the casting here is really strange.  Stevens is tremendously dull, Kline is too shrewd to fit the "village nut" mold of Maurice, and Scottish actor Ewan McGregor sounds like Ewan McGregor playing around with a fake French accent that isn't exaggerated enough to play for humor the way Jerry Orbach's did.  Watson and Evans are both fine, and Josh Gad, as Gaston's more sympathetic gay flunky LeFou is pretty much spot on.
Visually, the film is a marvel, particularly in the design of the French village, which is lush and beautiful with an illustrative quality rather than aiming for realism, although in a strange contrast, the ballroom dance is curiously muted in its color and certainly falls short of the famous sequence from the original.  The designs of the castle staff are varied, from the inspired look of Mrs. Potts (Emma Thompson) and Chip (Nathan Mack) as tea china with painted-on visages, or the RETURN TO OZ-reminiscent clockwork of Cogsworth, while Lumiere is a noted step down in creative design from the inspired simplicity of the original, now essentially a little bronze man with a candle on his head and hands.    In many cases, it could be argued that they're gilding the lily (a scene of gold leaf being magically added to the yellow ballgown feels like an almost too aware case of this), but far and away the greatest strengths of the movie are its visuals, and it's hard to imagine that even just after finishing up with the last one that next year's awards season won't still have their eyes on these costumes and art direction.

For all its visual flair though, between the flaccid and mismatched casting, constant but unfulfilling teases of the greatness in the original, and overall perfunctory narrative, the characters and story feel hollow.  It's unfortunate because, even after last year's LA LA LAND, this kind of a large-scale live-action musical is still awfully rare (and certainly with this kind of budget, which is one of the most expensive live-action movie musicals ever made), and Bill Condon embraces the format fully, complete with flashy musical numbers and a bit of camp.  The songs Ashman & Menken songs are still splendid, although, perhaps out of familiarity with the original, the new voices and inflections lack the same "oomph", and mostly it made me want to go home and watch the animated version.  None of the new songs composed by Menken and lyricist Tim Rice stand on the same level, and in addition to feeling stagnant, they only serve to prolong the running time.  So much of the movie hangs on the fact that there is another version of this movie, it's animated, 45 minutes shorter, with none of the fat, only the good songs, and pretty much everything about it works better, and this movie wants to be everything that movie is and more.  But it ends up being less, and even then, it's still a messed up story about an emotionally abusive and manipulative Beast who scores because he forced the Beauty to choose between himself, a clock and a candlestick.

                                                                                                                                                                          Images via Disney