Landon Santini
lbs001@marietta.edu
This week, we’ll be looking at the 2017 remake of the classic 1991 Disney animated masterpiece Beauty and the Beast, which itself was adapted from a very famous French fairytale by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont. This is the latest in Disney’s successful adaptations of their animated films after 2015’s Cinderella, and 2016’s The Jungle Book and Pete’s Dragon. Disney is really hitting a lot of homeruns, and I was very curious to see what they could do with this film, because the original version is one of my favorite films that I grew up with.
There was a lot going into this film that I was very excited about. If you don’t know the story, there is prince who is cursed because of his selfish nature. His curse is to live as a beast with all of the members of his castle being turned into anthropomorphic objects, operating as clocks and candlesticks. Leading lady Belle is played by Emma Watson of Harry Potter fame. Belle is a woman who is obsessed with books, gets trapped in the beast’s castle, and has to learn to love this beast to hopefully reverse the spell. This film follows the original 1991 animated film, almost to a tee. There are a few new songs, and a few new extra scenes. There are also a few story elements that have been altered.
Some of these elements are things intended to update the story to modern day standards, and others are things that will certainly appall certain parents today. For the most part, it maintains the original feel of the animated classic, and I had a total blast with this film. The film is directed by Bill Condon, who in the past has made one of the Twilight films. There’s really nothing bad I can say about the way Twilight is directed. Those films are bad because of the scripts, Condon’s direction of those films was about as good as you one might expect when you’re handed those scripts. In the case of this film, Condon makes an absolutely beautiful looking film, and a lot of praise should be given to the production design.
I loved his portrayal of the Beast, which was sympathetic, just like he should be. But at the same time, the viewer does not pity him just because he was cursed. That is something they changed in this version. In the original, he had been a beast since he was a child. As a result, he had forgotten a lot about his past, and he had to learn certain things from Belle. That was how the two of them grew to love one another. In this version, he gets turned into a beast as an adult, and therefore retains his intellect.
The Beast is very literate. He still loves books, so he shares that connection with Belle. They can share that love of books and knowledge together. The romance is essentially mutual in this film, and that’s something I think they actually improved upon from the original version. The prevalent songs that we grew up with and love are still here in the film. Emma Watson, Dan Stevens, and the entire cast did a very good job at performing them. I really loved the music because the original composer from the animated film Alan Menken come back to score the remake. Luke Evans as Gaston was entertaining. If you’ve seen the original version then you know that his character is lusting after Belle, he’s the big hunky guy in town, and Belle wants nothing to do with him.
Evans portrayal was perfect in this film. In fact, all of the casting was on point here. Kevin Kline as Belle’s father Maurice was equally amazing. This film had fantastic performances all the way around. The music, the set design, the performances, and the essence of the story were captured so well. The film is very much so a slave of the original. It follows the first movie’s formula in every aspect, from scene-to-scene.
The songs are the same, the locations are the same, and the events that happen are pretty much the same. There are a few extra little songs, and a few extra little scenes that weren’t in the original film, and composers tweaked some of the character motivations as well. But as a whole, it’s pretty much the exact same film but retold as live-action. Are you okay with that or were you hoping for something more original that was completely different? As far as I’m concerned, the original Beauty and the Beast is still an animated classic.
Personally speaking, I’m glad that the remake didn’t try to do something insane and change up the formula because I was perfectly happy with what I got. I think this is a very marvelous Disney live-action adaptation. They’ve knocked it out of the park yet again, so as such, I’m going to give this film a score of 5 out of 5.
