The magic is still there, but now in Live-Action!
Belle is small town girl that longs for a future outside of her rural life. When her father, a tinkerer, goes missing, she ventures off to look for him and stumbles upon a magical castle where he is being held. After a run-in with the mystical beast that owns the castle, she is left with the ultimatum, leave him there, or take his place. She goes on to save him and is left to stow away in her new home. During her stay, she meets a cast of magical house wares, and is now tasked with figuring out why things are the way they are.
I was highly skeptical of this movie, but was pleasantly surprised after leaving the theater. Whenever a classic movie is remade, anybody that grew up with it may be worried about the outcome. For one thing, after watching trailers, I wasn’t a big fan of the design and look of The Beast, but that wasn’t the case when I watched the film. He actually fit in fine and I wasn’t very bothered the way that I initially felt.
With that being said, the cgi wasn’t the best that it could be. I was hoping that it would be up to par with the recently released, The Jungle Book, but it felt like a small step back. The backgrounds felt extremely artificial. The Beast stuck out in some scenes and didn’t blend well with the scenery. The secondary characters were fine though.
Emma Watson did pretty well for a singing role, but I’m not sure if she was the best suited for falling in love with beasts. This was more of an emotional role, compared to the original animated film, which fit her, but the rest of the character didn’t feel like the first.
The good thing about this being based on the original, the leads aren’t the main singers. Although the leads did well on their parts, the classic songs like “Be Our Guest” and “Beauty and The Beast” were done by the secondary cast. I’m not quite sure yet if those actors/actresses were actually singing the songs, but they were done well. There are even a few additions to the original soundtrack.
This didn’t stray far from the original. It still felt familiar, even if I hadn’t watched the animated film for several years. With a few bumps from graphics and lead casting, this is easily a recommendation for any Disney lover.