
Beauty and the Beast
Dir: Bill Condon
Starring: Emma Watson, Dan Stevens, Luke Evans, Josh Gad, Kevin Kline, Ewan McGregor, Ian McKellen, Stanley Tucci, Audra McDonald, and Emma Thompson
“Tale as old as time”. In 1946 French artist, playwright, and filmmaker Jean Cocteau brought a classic of storytelling to stunning, visionary life. “Beauty and the Beast” has since been retold and reimagined, though it wasn’t until 1991 that a film would come close to matching the magical quality of Cocteau’s film. Disney animation crafted a children’s musical that would become a beloved staple for a generation of young people.


Dan Stevens plays the Beast, a performance composed with a motion capture suit that is then transformed digitally into the towering, roaring monster. This method works half the time, mostly when Ms. Watson is there to support and react to the performance. Whenever the Beast is left to portray dramatic moments, and sing on a few occasions, some of the digital seams are revealed and the emotion that should come through, as it did with the beautiful performance by Jean Marais in Jean Cocteau’s film over 70 years ago, is lost.

As for all the controversy that has produced anger and boycotts from different groups, these scenes are so minuscule, so slight, so simplistically woven into minor moments in the film that unless you go into this film specifically looking for controversy, you will hardly recognize it. For a film that displays a character living in a world that attacks difference, it seems so foolish to think that some viewers wouldn’t recognize the moral of the journey of Belle, which is empathy, acceptance, and knowledge above all can change anything.
“Beauty and the Beast” spends more time, over two hours, building a display of lavish digitally composed atmospheres than it does trying to establish a better narrative or deeper connections to the interesting characters found in this fairytale. Still, the loyal and dutiful allegiance to the original animated feature may be enough to overlook the blemishes.
Monte’s Rating
3.50 out of 5.00
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