Beauty and the Beast offers stale retelling of tale as old as time

Beast (Dan Stevens) and Belle (Emma Watson) in Beauty and the Beast. Image courtesy Disney.

There are a number of problems plaguing the live-action version of Beauty and the Beast in theaters today, but the totality of the film’s issues is summarized in one simple statement: This movie never justifies a reason to exist independent of the original. There are a few differences in this one when compared with the 1991 animated classic, some character changes and a fattened up run time to make it appropriate for these sorts of adaptations. None of it, though, offers a significant artistic reason for Disney to reboot Beauty and the Beast. It  banks on nostalgia to ride through some placid waves of mediocrity, trading excellence for subpar exchanges.

The troubles start from the get-go with a retelling of the tale of how a young prince (Dan Stevens) and his loyal staff (consisting of Ewan McGregor, Ian McKellen, Emma Thompson, Audra McDonald, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Nathan Mack and Stanley Tucci) receive the curse that turns them into the titular Beast and a collection of personified furniture and knickknacks. It's a longer rendition than the animated one, acted out by the characters in a way that does not align with the voiceover narrative going on at the moment. That points to the heart of the problem with 2017's Beauty and the Beast; you the story doesn’t change, it just has more to it at a lesser quality. More is somehow less and yet still the same.

So what do audiences get with the extra 45 minutes of screen time with Beast, Belle (Emma Watson), Garcon (Luke Evans), LeFou (Josh Gad) and the kooky servants of the decrepit castle? They receive more backstory explaining why Beast is as he is (the reason is a dead mother, because Disney can't not have a dead parent). They find out why Belle's father (Kevin Kline) is a single father (the reason is yet another dead mother). They get a few more songs thrown in, none of which hold a candle to the exceptional numbers ported over from the original. They have more time to discover plot holes and think about how weird it is to eat from a spoon that was a person. They generally get useless content that provides no greater understanding of Beauty and the Beast. That is, except, for one change concerning the characterizations of Beast and Garcon. This version widens the personality gap between the two, turning Beast into a curmudgeon instead of a cold-hearted brute and cranking up Garcon's villainy to cartoonish levels. Beast is now a misunderstood loner, while Garcon is the jock who takes the bullying several steps beyond what is reasonable. I can understand the motivation to avoid the moderate similarities of the two characters found in the first Beauty and the Beast that gives some logic to Garcon’s actions, but the way the result pushes it so far to the other end the narrative arcs get bumped away in the process. All of that focus on those two leaves little else for poor Belle to do but sit and watch as the men fight. There are 45 more minutes to work with, and the filmmaker couldn't spare additional time to add depth to Belle’s story.

The most distracting thing about this Beauty and the Beast is the visual divide between Watson's Belle and the CGI rendering of Stevens' Beast. The characters never look quite right standing next to each other, the poor quality of Steven's CGI character clashing greatly against Watson. A few action scenes in particular make Beast look like a meh video game character as he leaps awkwardly from one spire to the next like a drunk King Kong. It kills any sense of verisimilitude between the two characters, putting one in a real world while banishing the other to a computerized realm.

Aside from all that, there are precious few differences between the 1991 Beauty and the Beast and its 2017 followup; it has almost everything the original does, but done slightly to largely worse. This new version isn't capable of standing on its own, nor does it seem to want to be anything beyond a real version of the animated classic. Riding on coattails is an OK strategy for financial success – and it will probably do more than fine at the box office – but a terrible one for earning a cinematic legacy.

Review: Two out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: PG

Run time: 129 minutes

Genre: Fantasy

Ask Away

Target audience: People who have really, really fond memories of the original.

Take the whole family?: A few scenes get a little heavy, but on the whole the material is safe enough for kids.

Theater or Netflix?: Just wait for it to come to you and avoid the price gouging.

What up with LeFou?: There's apparently been a decent amount of hubbub over Josh Gad's LeFou, who is apparently gay per Gad. Despite some shouting from certain countries, the movie minimizes his character’s sexual orientation and makes it largely a non-issue. The only scene that offers a direct indication of LeFou’s sexuality lasts for about five seconds and is nowhere near salacious. There is almost nothing to any of this, because Disney prefers to stay well within the boundaries of social progression.

Watch this instead?: Go dig out the DVD of the original and watch it a few more times.

Kong smashes in Skull Island

Kong faces down helicopters in Kong: Skull Island. Image courtesy Warner Bros.

There are precious few complications to Kong: Skull Island. The movie sets itself up to be a good old fashioned monster movie featuring a giant ape smashing all the things and giant lizards eating people, and it delivers exactly all of that with even more creatures and a little emotional undercurrent to offer just a little something else beyond mindless smashing. But, really, it’s the smashing that matters most.

Director Jordan Vogt-Roberts and his team of writers get right to the monster from the get-go, using the opening sequence to contrast Kong's enormity with the first wave of intruders to come to his island, American and Japanese fighter pilots who happen to be fighting to the death in 1944. It doesn't take too much longer than to jump the story to 1973 and establish the key players who keep the plot going and get them right back to that island located somewhere in the South Pacific so viewers can watch Kong demolish a fleet of helicopters and piss off Samuel L. Jackson's crazed colonel. What people want to see from a movie called Kong: Skull Island is Kong acting very ape on his home turf, and the gaps between the human interactions designed to push the plot forward and the wanton craziness with Kong are short and sweet.

Skull Island has a few themes it hits on with a decent amount of success. The Vietnam War backdrop serves as a tool to set up important plot machinations and acts a thematic parallel between the Americans invading Skull Island and the actions taken during the war. Along those lines is the Ahab in Apocalypse Now subplot involving Jackson's character losing his mind over the ape and, again, the war. It’s an interesting idea that works in no small part from Jackson’s consistent ferocity in the role and one memorable shot of Jackson staring down Kong through a wall of flames. It looks just as cool as it sounds.

The humans as a whole though are a little less important, especially in comparison to King Kong's emphasis on the romantic subplot between Kong and the respective female protagonist. Brie Larson's photographer Mason Weaver is as close as this film gets to a Fay Wray, Jessica Lange or Naomi Watts, but her relationship with Kong is less amorous and more protective of each other. But there’s just enough emotional justification for Skull Island to work on that level and the movie establishes character motivations efficiently before settling on the island. Larson's Mason and the young geologist played by Corey Hawkins are both drawn to the island by curiosity. Jackson is fueled by his remorse for the unsatisfactory end of the Vietnam War and the emptiness that comes from a man who lives to fight but has no more battles left. John Goodman's government official Bill Randa is motivated by desperation. Tom Hiddleston's tracker James Conrad is in it for the money. It’s not enough to forge fleshed out characters, but it is more than enough to care about which humans will or will not get eaten.

Skull Island never asks any of them to do more than solid work or be a menacing Samuel L. Jackson. It leaves the emotional heavy lifting to John C. Reilly as the slightly loony Hank Marlow, the American soldier who crashes to the island toward the end of World War II. It’s easy to feel for a man stuck on an island of death for almost three decades, only wanting to go to home to his wife and see his son for the first time, all the while losing bits of his mind. Reilly sells his character's humor as expected from his comedic background while hitting on the loneliness the character, making the final few silent moments with Marlow more rewarding than expected.

There’s just enough there to keep the moments between monster action interesting as the humans wait for Kong or some other creature to strike. The battles are the selling point, and Vogt-Roberts put a lot of time and effort into making them engaging, enthralling and surprisingly gory given the rating. Watching Kong rise from the trees is intense and astounding, a great figure rising from the depths to protect his home from unwanted invaders. The vibe these fights give off are rooted in the atavism of its main character, messy and violent and without too much complexity. Vogt-Roberts’ film promised a giant ape fighting humans and monsters alike, and Skull Island gave the world a very good version of what it promised.

Review: Four out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: PG-13

Run time: 120 minutes

Genre: Action
 

Ask Away

Target audience: Loyal King Kong fans and people interested in what will happen to this monster franchise and several others in the very near future.

Take the whole family?: I really have no idea how this thing got a PG-13 rating. There is a lot more gore than expected for this rating, so make sure your kids can handle blood if you take them.

Theater or Netflix?: Big screen is cool if you do it matinee style.

Any other things worth noting?: One of the cool touches Jordan Vogt-Roberts uses are a few bait and switches where characters try to sacrifice themselves. Most films emphasize a blaze of glory for characters after a kiss-off line, but Vogt-Roberts turns that on its head and shows the more realistic result of their attempts at martyrdom in a land of enormous creatures.

Watch this as well?: Any of the three versions of King Kong is watchable on some level. The 1933 iteration remains the best, while Peter Jackson's remake is a step above the one starring Jessica Lange. Track down Godzilla circa 1954 – although not the one remade for American audiences – and the much more recent creature feature Monsters for some more monster mashing.