Beauty and the Beast – A fairy tale of Eighteenth Century.
I had been waiting for a Long time since the moment when I heard Disney would be making a live-action remake of my favorite Disney movie. It felt like forever until the day would finally come when it would come out. March 17 has finally came, and though I did not get to see it on opening day. I Saw it yesterday. I would also like to point out the fact that I am an absolute hopeless romantic. Those sweet fairy tales with happy endings, good triumphing over evil, and love conquering all just make my heart full and leave me with a smile on my face. I am ridiculously excited to share my thoughts on the movie! Before I begin, I thought I would briefly state my opinions on other live action Disney films. I loved”cinderella” an amazing remake of the classic and more than I had hoped for, liked “Jungle Book”, “Pete’s dragon” was just fine, ” Maleficent changes a lot” sometimes I do not like it while other times I think it is just okay and “Beauty and the Beast” is absolute perfect from the beginning to the end!
If you like Beauty and the Beast as much as I do, I hope you enjoy this tag!
“Tale As Old As Time” – A popular theme, trope or setting you will never get bored with reading.
With that being said, it is with deepest pride and greatest pleasure that we welcome you tonight. And now we invite you to relax, let us pull up a chair as the dining room proudly presents – your review.
Please note, that this is review has spoilers that could ruin your experience watching this film, so read on at your own risk.
Beauty and the Beast opened with beautiful imagery and I loved that they had stayed true to the original animated prologue. Instead of the Beast being a young boy at the time of his encounter with the Enchantress, he is a young man who we later find out to be the by-product of his unloving father. The Enchantress scene was a little different because it did not take place on a glass window, like it did in the original. I liked how they made the Enchantress look when she was the beggar woman, Agatha and I loved how they made her look when she turned into the Enchantress. The Beast transformation was really good!
The reprise song “Belle”, I absolutely adore Emma Watson’s singing voice and I think she did a wonderful job.
The moment we meet Emma Watson as Belle is perfect. Moving into the “Belle” number we familiarize ourselves with the main character and instead of the villagers merely thinking Belle to be a funny and odd girl, we see more of their fear and disdain of her. I enjoyed all the little nuances in this scene and the nods to the original movie. Although this scene is supposed to be about Belle, I think that Gaston and Lefou’s interaction upstaged our heroine. We see Gaston as a war veteran who has a cruel edge to him instead of just solely being pompous and narcissistic. I am the kind of girl who finds Gaston very attractive, but I also hate him at the same time. I liked how in this film, he once fought in the war, and I think that explains his personality a lot! Though Lefou is still the “sidekick” of the pairing, I liked that he was smart and sarcastic at times. It showed that he had a separate personality instead of being merely Gaston’s heartless follower.
Maurice – Belle’s father role played by the great Kevin Kline.Belle’s father was a little different since he was an artist, but he still had the same love for his daughter as he did in the original film.
The song “How Does a Moment Last Forever” sung by him can drench your eyes with tear. When he makes his way off to sell his music box, he asks if there is anything he could bring back for Belle and she asks for her usual request: A rose. Maurice’s journey into the woods is the stuff of nightmares. The mysterious snow, the lightning that hits the tree and sends him on another path, and of course the terrifying wolves. When Maurice comes upon the enchanted castle and he is mysteriously welcomed in. It was different. The door opens for him. He warms up by the fire, starts to eat some food what he found at the table, and then, got scared by Chip, a little boy who was turned into a teacup. On Maurice’s escape, he remembers Belle’s request to get her a rose. He goes outside and saw roses. This is when the Beast appears and drags him off to the dungeon. I loved that this version was true to the original fairy tale.
The Gaston song was amazing! I found it a lot better than the original song. Be Our Guest was good too. I loved all the colors, and the singing was better than I thought it would be. After Belle cleans up the Beast’s wound because he gets attacked by wolves, the enchanted objects tell Belle that the Beast is under a curse, and about the rose. They did not say how to break the spell, but I really did not like it that they told Belle about this! I did like how they told Belle a little back story to when he was a child, and it explains why he was so selfish.
I was surprised to see Gaston actually agree to go with Maurice instead of throwing him out when Maurice bursts into the tavern to ask for help to save Belle from the Beast. This was short-lived when their journey into the forest got them lost and Maurice couldn’t find his way back to the castle. Gaston tied him to a tree and left him for dead as we see Lefou unsure of his choices. Agatha, a beggar woman, finds Maurice and cares for him. Soon after, As the Beast and Belle’s relationship morphs from tense and distrustful to warm and friendly. Here we learn that the Beast is well-read with an “expensive education” and gifts the library to Belle. At one point, Beast shows Belle something he was given to by the Enchantress that can take you to any place you want. Belle chooses Paris, where she was born. Here she finds out what happened to her mother, and why her father never talks about her.
When we come to the ballroom scene I find that at least point I can no longer deny the fact that I hate how unrealistic the Beast appears next to Belle. I read that during production they originally had Dan Stevens in prosthetic makeup designed by Dave and Lou Elsey but later changed the Beast’s face to CGI (Computer-generated imagery). Although they had not mentioned anything about altering the rest of his body, the Beast appears to be all CGI to me in comparison to Belle and renders the appearance jarring and glaringly obvious that he is a CGI creation. Putting that aside the rest of the famous scene, The ballroom scene was amazing, and the Beauty and the Beast song was good, too! Belle’s yellow dress was simply beautiful.I loved something there how Belle and Beast quickly start to fall in love. After the Beast lets Belle go to save her father who gets hurts, he sings a song called “Evermore” which is so heart wrenchingly beautiful and if I hadn’t known that in the end Belle would come back to him and all would be right, I would have been shedding tears like a baby.
The Mob Song I found extra dark, and when Gaston killed the Beast, I found it extra dark since he shot the Beast several times.It was very different when the last petal fell because all the enchanted objects turned into regular objects. The sad part was not the Beast dying but seeing the rest of the castle occupants transitioning from enchanted forms to inanimate objects as the last petal falls away. I agreed that it created an even more overwhelming feeling that not only were we losing our hero but also the rest of the beloved crew.
Soon after, Remember Agatha, the beggar woman I mentioned earlier? she is the Enchantress, come to find out who sees Belle weeping for her fallen Beast and declares her love for him. In true Disney magic form, she restores the magic rose, transforming all the objects back to their previous splendor and the Beast turns into Prince and oh my, he was so handsome. That being said, I was a little miffed that they did not include this name in the movie but I will let that go as just a nit-picky notion of mine. Close up of Beast’s eyes. Belle looked at him for a beat. Beast looked at her for a beat. No words were exchanged. And obvious then they had a romantic kiss.
Love conquers all, people! This is the scene I’ve been living for!!!!
At least I got my happy ending. one more thing I loved Belle’s dress at the end ballroom scene! This post is getting out from my hand. Sorry that this review is a little long, but I want to talk about everything that come to my mind. Now, it is the right time for my overall thoughts.
As I mentioned previously the movie follows closely to the original animated film. A lot of the same dialogue was present, even sometimes verbatim from the animated script. You know those movies what you’ve watched them so many times and so often that you can quote them from beginning to end? That’s what this movie made me feel like in a lot of the scenes. I wouldn’t say I disliked it since my love for the original version is evident but I found it a tish annoying at times when I couldn’t turn my brain off and just enjoy.
Everyone was perfect for their role, but Emma Watson stood out to me the most. She was just perfect for the role of Belle, and she did a wonderful job on everything! I found Gaston a lot more evil, and I hated him even more because when he helped Maurice find Belle, he got so mad at him he tied him to a tree and left him to the wolves. Luke Evans did a wonderful job on being Gaston. I honestly have mixed feelings on the enchanted objects. I feel they could have done a way better job on the enchanted objects, but I did like the people that voiced them. I enjoyed how this movie had backstories for some of the main characters; that was one of my favorite things. I loved most of the songs. This movie did not have a lot of major changes, but I did not like how the enchanted objects told Belle how the Beast had a curse before the curse was broken. Overall, despite its flaws i mentioned above, I did enjoy this movie and will be downloading the soundtracks because Alan Menken, Tim Rice, and Howard Ashman are geniuses.This movie was just as I imagined it would be and I loved it! If I had to rate this movie I would say 4 stars out of 5.
I’ll of course highly recommend you to watch Disney’s live-action movie musical “Beauty and the Beast”.
“Be Our Guest” – A fictional story you’d love to have over for dinner.
And if you have already watched it, I am dying to hear your thoughts. 🙂
Cibriya A. 
Beautiful
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Welldone Kibzz….
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