Bill
Condon has directed this two hours and nine minutes long Disney live action
adaptation of their 1991 animated feature film, which again was based on “La
Belle et la Bête”, a traditional fairy tale written by French novelist
Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve and published in 1740.
The
animated film was one of the first Disney films to use CAPS (Computer Animation
Production System), a digital scanning, ink, paint, and compositing system of
software and hardware developed for Disney by Pixar, and to me it was the one
that marked the loss of quality in animated Disney films. Since “Beauty and the
Beast”, none of Disney’s feature films have been as magic as for instance “Snow
White”, “Pinocchio” or “Peter Pan” where everything was hand-drawn, but that’s
another story.
This
new version of “Beauty and the Beast” fixes some of the problems from the
animated film such as the time line and why the villagers are not aware of the
castle nearby, but all in all it sticks to the animated film rather than to the
original story.
As
for the music, I’m still not overly fond of the songs apart from “Be Our Guest”
and the title song “Beauty and the Beast”, but as it’s a musical, I endure it.
Much worse is the filming; especially when the camera makes 360° panning! Then
everything gets fuzzy and blurred and you can’t focus on anything. It looks
awful, to be honest.
As
for the actors, Emma Watson plays Belle (the Beauty), which really shows that
she was wrongly casted in Harry Potter where Hermione is supposed to be no
beauty with frizzy, untamable hair and protruding teeth. At least Hermione and
Belle has the love for books in common.
Dan
Stevens plays the Beast, so now we know what poor cousin Matthew from Downton
Abbey was up to in a previous life! Of other major parts, there are Belle’s
father Maurice (Kevin Kline), the narcissistic Gaston (Luke Evans), his
sidekick LeFou (Josh Gad) and all the enchanted servants: Cogsworth (Ian
McKellen), Lumière (Ewan McGregor), Plumette (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), Mrs. Potts (Emma
Thompson), Chip (Nathan Mack), Madame Garderobe (Audra McDonald) and Maestro
Cadenza (Stanley Tucci).
None
of the actors are particularly memorable except for Josh Gad as LeFou who is
gay in this version. This is the first Disney-character to be openly gay and
that’s about time, in my opinion. Now we only need a heroine with frizzy hair
and protruding teeth…
Anyway,
I read somewhere that the film has been banned in Malaysia and that you have to
be over sixteen to see it in Russia because of LeFou, but the censorship that PG-rates
films here in Denmark where I live didn’t even noticed that LeFou is gay! It’s
not in your face in the film, but only hinted at, especially in the closing
scene.
I
don’t get why everyone is so worked up over LeFou being a homosexual anyway,
especially when the zoophilia-aspect of the film doesn’t raise an eyebrow. So
it’s okay for a woman to fall in love with a beast, but not for a man to like
other men? Talk about double morale standards! Tut-tut!
I’ve
always wondered why Disney’s Beast looks the way he does, by the way, as most
of the early drawings to the original French fairy tale suggest that he resembles
a wild boar. But maybe making out with a pig would be too much for the double
moralists after all! In any case, Emma Watson is perfect for the role as in an
interview she let slip that her childhood crush was the lion Aslan from C. S.
Lewis’ chronicles of Narnia!
All
in all, this new version of “Beauty and the Beast” is a nice, clean, cosy
family film, but to be honest, I don’t think there’s a need to make Disney’s
animated feature films into live action films as they don’t really add anything
or make them better. Therefore, I’m not able to give “Beauty and the Beast”
more than three out of five stars: ***
