Beauty and the Beast (2017)

** ½ out of ****

When my oldest daughter was 2 or 3 years old, she was utterly obsessed with the 1991 animated version of “Beauty and the Beast”. For months she watched it no less than three times a day. Every time it ended, she asked for it to be played again. And I guess her mother thought it made a good babysitter, because the damned thing was always on.....

The point to that is that I am intimately familiar with that version, which truly was a wonderful movie and the first animated film ever nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. It was an excellent piece of storytelling with very few lags or downtime and the songs were all terrific and well performed. The new live-action version is pretty true to the animated film, but the downtime is considerably more and the songs (especially) are not very well done.

You probably know the story. Belle (Emma Watson) lives in a small town in France, where she feels out of place because she's a dreamer, and likes to read. Most of the townspeople think she is very peculiar, except for Gaston (Luke Evans) who wants to marry her. Unfortunately Gaston is a self-absorbed creep with whom she has nothing in common;  he only wants to marry her as a trophy wife due to her great beauty.  The story really starts when Belle's father (Kevin Kline) gets lost in the woods and takes shelter in a hidden castle. Bad luck for him..... it is the home of a prince who was transformed into a beast by an enchantress due to his selfishness and cruelty. All of the prince's servants were also transformed into household items, like a candelabra (Ewan McGregor), a clock (Ian McKellan) and a teapot (Emma Thompson).

The beast takes Belle's father captive for trespassing, which leads to Belle coming and swapping places with him so the Beast will grant her father his freedom. The inhabitants of the house know that if the Beast can love someone, and make her love him, their collective spell will be broken and they will all be restored to their human form, so everyone does everything possible to set the mood for romance between the two. Sounds girly, I know.... but it's still entertaining for the boys too.

My biggest problems with the movie were the running time (well over 2 hours) and the way the songs were performed. As for the length, unlike the animated version, there are periods of this film where things drag out unnecessarily. But even worse is the mix of the music. Most of the songs are too busy, with the backing music too loud. I knew the words of most of the songs because of my daughter's preoccupation with the original, but it was very noticeable that the lyrics of most songs were unintelligible. They could have been mixed far, far better, but it was also due to many of the songs being performed by actors instead of singers - the singing of the songs just lacked the oomph of real pros.

One thing I can compliment without reservation is the performances of the cast. Watson is enchanting as Belle, and Dan Stevens is suitably menacing as Beast. I thought that Kevin Kline was fantastic as Belle's father, and even Luke Evans brought a lot to the role of the horrible Gaston. I saw this movie with four 12-year-olds (2 boys and 2 girls) and even the boys stayed quiet and never wavered from the screen. The girls cried at the appropriate times, and all four said afterward that they loved it. I guess that's a pretty ringing endorsement for a Disney film.

Still, I stick to my 2 and a half star rating, mainly because this is simply a lesser film than the animated version, and really isn't even close. The young girls sang along with the songs in the 1991 version, but they won't be doing it here as they won't be able to distinguish most of the words. A nice little movie to kill the time, but if you want a better telling of the same story, get the 1991 animated version instead.