For the past year, Disney has been teasing us with trailers and promo pics of the live-action Beauty and the Beast. With none other than Emma Watson as Belle and Downton Abbey’s Dan Stevens as the Beast, fans had a lot to look forward to from the movie.
As Disney released more and more promotional pics and new trailers, I feared that they had over-promoted it. This is Beauty and the Beast after all, it doesn’t need that much promotion. Going into the movie, I thought I had already seen everything it had to offer, because they had revealed the whole story already. Thinking this led to pre-release disappointment.
Thankfully, Disney did not disappoint me. The movie had many new scenes and songs in addition to all the old classics. They didn’t sacrifice any of the old scenes in order to fit in the new pieces. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that everything they had already revealed in trailers and promos was just scenes from the original animated version.
Despite my earlier hesitations, I was expecting a lot from the cinematography. I enjoyed the backgrounds and scenery, especially of the castle and the enchanted servants. It was very elaborate, but tastefully so. With new CGI software, even the live-action movie looked enchanted- fitting for a fairy tale.
Many fans were disappointed with the movie, critiquing Emma Watson and Dan Stevens’ singing voices, or even Emma Thompson’s reimagining of Angela Lansbury’s Mrs. Potts. However, I thought the charm was in the way they added their own personality to the characters. It’s strange to think of the generation of children who will grow up with these new songs the way we grew up the original songs.
What I really would have liked however, was for Disney to keep the identity of the actor playing the Beast a secret until his transformation at the end of the movie. For practical purposes, that would never have worked, but it would have and heightened the anticipation and been a perfect gesture, keeping with the spirit of the story.
All in all, I’m pleased with the live-action version. My favorite part was probably the ornate depiction of the castle, but I also really loved the creative twists put on this tale as old as time.