By Parker Sublette
Staff Writer
Beauty and the Beast is a beauty in its own right.
Beauty and the Beast has it all: great musical sequences, realistic CGI, progressive casting, and creative re-imagining of a classic results in a fantastic piece of cinema despite drawbacks in costume design.
Beauty and the Beast was directed by Bill Condon and written by Stephen Chbosky and Evan Spiliotopoulos. The film had a budget of roughly 160 million dollars and is slated to release March 17. This movie is the first of many live action remakes of animated films that Disney is slated to make.
The film is a retelling of the Disney classic, in which a young prince turned into a monster (Dan Stevens) finds his only chance to undo the curse in the young bookish girl Belle (Emma Watson) who finds herself in his enchanted castle. All the while Gaston (Luke Evans) a spurned suitor of Belle’s try to take her back for himself.
Check out pictures relating to the film
Besides being a classic love story, Beauty and the Beast is also a fantastic musical, filled with catchy and exciting tunes. There are several musical numbers throughout the film, all of which differ in tune and tempo, and each one is as fun and grandiose as the last. Each musical number is wonderfully choreographed and expertly sung by the cast.
Many were worried that by doing a fully CGI beast that the character might come out looking strange or unrealistic. Luckily, that is not the case as each CGI character from Lumière the Candlestick to the Beast himself look and feel real, despite being entirely computer generated.
Beauty and the Beast was also Disney’s first film featuring a confirmed LGBT+ character. The character LeFou (Josh Gad) is confirmed to be gay and in love with the main antagonist Gaston. While there has been some outcry about Disney’s first gay character being a villain, it is most definitely a step in a more progressive direction which will open the doors for more of this in the future, and hopefully lead to a more diverse world of film making.
This new live action version manages to live up to old one without being a simple shot-for-shot remake. The film stays true to the romantic feel and charm of the original while putting on its own subtle spins with the more realistic feel that live action acting and singing presents.
The only issue that can be found within the film is a relatively specific one. The film fails to successfully recreate Belle’s famous yellow dress, the most recognizable outfit from the original animated. One would think with a 160 million dollar budget that they would be able to make a dress befitting of the original, but in the end it looks more like a Halloween costume in comparison.
Aside from complaints about costume design, Beauty and the Beast lives up to its animated predecessor with realistic CGI, progressive casting, and fantastic musical sequences. This film itself might even become a classic even more so than the original.
Beauty and the Beast was released March 17 and is rated PG and is playing in theaters nationwide.
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