Say what you will about Disney's live-action Beauty and the Beast, but you can't say it doesn't at least try to give you something new. To the contrary, it runs a whopping 45 minutes longer than the 1991 animated version.
Whether those 45 minutes add anything worth having, though, is a different question.
SEE ALSO:PSA: The new 'Beauty and the Beast' soundtrack is streaming on SpotifyThis Beauty and the Beastannounces itself as an updated version of the tale right away, opening on the (human) prince's beautification ritual ahead of a ball. This one isn't afraid of shimmery blue eyeliner or a dusting of rouge, and his servants are almost as dolled up as he is. Presumably this is meant to remind us that outer vs. inner beauty is one of the story's big themes.
When the witch arrives and casts her spell, a voiceover narration explains that the enchantment erases all memory of the prince and his servants by anyone in the outside world. This is another way the new movie differs from the old one: it tries to answer some of the questions left lingering in the original, like the one of why no one in the town seems all that bothered that the local prince and all his household staff have straight-up vanished.
Beast (Dan Stevens) and Belle (Emma Watson) take a field trip.Credit: disneyLike where that came from? There are also half-hearted attempts to clarify how the Beast came to be such a selfish jerk in the first place, and why the servants were enchanted along with him when they, unlike their boss, seem like generally nice people. Ever wonder why Belle has a dad but no mom? Or what Gaston was up to before he started pursuing Belle? That's all in there, too.
This movie is forever explaining things, but rarely to any satisfying end. Belle's backstory, for example, is just an additional piece of information that sheds no more light on her or her relationship to her family. The witch's justification for punishing the servants only raises more questions, chief among them "Is this witch just an asshole?"
And so on, and so forth.
Nothing to see here, just a guy dancing with his captive in an empty room.Credit: disneyThat Beauty and the Beasthas plot holes isn't the issue. There are plenty of things about the original that don't make much sense, either. But the 1991 version moves briskly enough to glide over these pitfalls, whereas the 2017 version lumbers along in stops and starts. When it's working, it does a capable job of recapturing that old magic. When it's not, it's hard to resist sneaking a peek at the clock and wondering if we reallyneeded a 10-minute sojourn to Paris to resolve a subplot that the film never seemed all that invested in to begin with.
But backstories don't account for all of those extra 45 minutes. A good chunk of that time is devoted to brand-new musical numbers to complement the soundtrack you already know and love. "How Does a Moment Last Forever" is a wistful ballad sung by Maurice (Kevin Kline) and later reprised by Belle (Emma Watson), and then repeated againover the end credits by Céline Dion. Somehow, after three tries, it still fails to make much of an impression. "Days in the Sun" is even less memorable.
At least Dan Stevens' Beast fares a little better with the mournful love song "Evermore," which gets a Josh Groban version over the credits. Too bad it falls victim to the aforementioned pacing issues, arriving just at the moment we're most eager for the story to keep moving.
Surprise! Gaston (Luke Evans) and Lefou (Josh Gad) are actually better in the remake.Credit: DisneyMeanwhile, the remakes of the old songs feel like, well, remakes of old songs. Watson and Stevens sound serviceable at best. Even after what sounds like heavy digital manipulation, it's clear they have the weakest voices in the cast. The film's unimaginative staging and awkward edits don't help, either. The biggest letdown of all is the ballroom sequence, which just looks like two people dancing awkwardly in an empty room. If there's any sizzle or spark there, no one involved with this production is letting on.
The only number to improve on its predecessor is "Gaston." In part that's because Josh Gad (Lefou) and Luke Evans (Gaston) are both bona fide musical theater vets, with the hearty voices and outsized charisma that comes with that line of work. It's also the only number with choreography that makes full use of its set and ensemble. Perhaps most crucially, it reflects the most interesting change to the source material: the more complicated dynamic between Gaston and Lefou. All in all, that number makes for one of the few moments in Beauty and the Beastwhere it feels like we're watching something new, rather than just retracing the steps of the original.
Plumette is technically a new character, I guess, since Lumiere's feather duster girlfriend didn't have a name in the original.Credit: disneyWhich, really, is what Beauty and the Beast's problems come down to. Disney's Cinderellacast a spell by breaking down the source material to its barest components -- Cinderella's essential goodness, the sweeping romance, and the story's moral backbone -- and building it back up in a way that felt both modern and timeless. Likewise, The Jungle Bookrediscovered the elemental danger of its setting, and jumped on the opportunity to push the boundaries of CG magic. Even Maleficent, clunky as it was, tried to find something unexpected in the Sleeping Beautystory.
Beauty and the Beastdoesn't really do any of that. It's just a straightforward retelling of the original, with a few cosmetic changes tacked on to make it look like something else. It's a pleasant enough watch, and there's novelty in seeing familiar setpieces remade in "live-action." And there's certainly moreof everything here – more story, more characters, more songs.
It's just that none of it amounts to more magic.
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