A good way to describe Beauty and the Beast is that it has a pitch perfect cast, it is based off of beloved material...and then somebody hired Bill Condon to direct it. Now, for a moment, I have a great amount of respect for Bill Condon: he’s a fine director , he’s made at least one GREAT movie (I haven’t seen Gods and Monsters), and he should absolutely make those movies. Beauty and the Beast, however, is defined by the fact it can never come alive like any of the other versions, including last year’s weirdly detached French version. Much of the problem comes down to simple direction, though I’m sure the poorly paced screenplay adding some useless padding didn’t help. This is a limply created movie, with almost no gravitas at all, trying to ape the aesthetic of the 1991 version of this same movie and the most recent Cinderella movie. It can’t though and much of it comes down to composition and framing. All the other versions of Beauty and the Beast built the odd romantic relationship out of the mysterious or wondrous camerawork that Jean Cocteau or the many talented animators that worked to craft the animated one were always the best at employing. This version just settles for cutting that is almost lifeless, despite the fact that the cast and material still hold up remarkably well. The best moments of the film come from the cast throwing all the energy they have up on screen: Emma Watson as Belle, the best choice of the movie. Dan Stevens, yeah, nobody could act through all that CGI beast (seriously, the 40s version of this movie has a better looking and more charismatic Beast), but damn it if Stevens doesn’t go all in on the whole thing. Same thing goes for the CGI characters, which do actually look REALLY expressive in motion but overall just uninteresting, with the only two becoming something of a presence being Ewan McGregor as Lumiere and Ian McKellen as Cogsworth. Luke Evans as Gaston does some great work, for the first hour, but then the character is fumbled. Josh Gad as Lefou...you know what maybe that was the best choice of the movie. This is a cast for the ages, with everyone acting and singing and dancing their butts off, but just like Les Miserables, where everyone was doing the same (including Russell Crowe, go away detractors), the overall direction has muted the entire thing. The first minutes aren’t so bad, but things start to become dreadfully depressing when “Be Our Guest” slowly gets worse as it goes along, trying to be something large and wonderful, but just feeling...well for lack of professionalism, “blah.” A lot of the big moments feel like that. The wolves chasing Belle in the woods, the opening number, the death of Gaston, and the headlining dance to the entire thing (sorry Emma Thompson that you had to follow up Angela Lansbury, nobody was ever going to top her) all feel cold and empty, rather than warm and epic. Even the one song that the movie comes alive during, “Gaston” is fumbled by cutting that never seems to be with the beat of the music and never lets us see all the choreography. That’s not nitpicking, that’s just calling attention to a systemic problem for the film in that all of the fun song and dance stuff here is marred by editing that doesn’t let it be fun. Beauty and the Beast is not an exciting movie. It’s a poorly paced, well designed, well acted but empty version of an exciting movie. If you absolutely have to see it, enjoy the cast, enjoy some of the visuals, and enjoy what you can while trying to think of the 1991 version. It’s not an all around horrible piece of work, but it sure is a step down for Disney’s live action projects. I give Beauty and the Beast a 5.5 out of 10.
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December 2017
CategoriesAuthorHello welcome to FilmAnalyst. My name is Stephen Tronicek, and I really like movies. This is a way to get my opinions out to people. Thank you for visiting. |