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.