Beauty & the Beast: A Review

Well, maybe not so much a review as a collection of bullet points of things I said aloud whilst watching this movie the other night.

• Oh hey, a multiracial cast!  Nice.
• (Although only 2 of the main named characters were POC)
• YAS AUDRA!
• Ooh, I like the dancing.
• In fact, I appreciated the attempt to give a wee bit more (pseudo)historical background in the film, except
• The fabulous opening sequence sets us up for an over-the-top experience, nearly cartoonish without being a cartoon -- and that's not a bad thing.  The attempt to give some historical context is at odds with that; you can do one or the other filmmakers, but you can't really do both (at least not well).
• Nice addition to the Prologue about everyone in town "forgetting" about castle and its servants; it fixes one of the major plot holes of the animated film, namely:  how the fuck do you not notice a giant creepy castle right next door?!?
• Holy fucking Autotuning, Batman!
• I nearly turned the movie off, but a friend said the Autotuning wasn't as bad as the film progressed.  BUT GOOD GODDAMN.
• Oh, Bard.  I'm disappointed in you.
• So now the bookseller is...a priest?  That's an odd choice.
• Upon further reflection, if she's the only one in town who likes to read, then a bookseller wouldn't be able to make a living; having a person who just happens to have a wee library from which she can borrow makes a bit of sense.  But it felt weird to have a sudden injection of religion, never to be addressed.
• And the priest gave her Romeo & Juliet to read??  Odd choice.
• Oh Josh Gad.  You make me laugh.
• Although, his type of dry delivery (and some of the others) also seems to fight against the "over the top" visual presentation/style of the film.  It's not Benedict-Cumberbatch-attempting-an-American-dialect-and-American-delivery-in-Doctor Strange bad, but in a "Was that really that funny?" way you might think five minutes after the joke was delivered.
• Kevin Kline is a national treasure.
• *Belle picks up a stick as a weapon*  Oh, girl, that's not a wand.
• I'm not sure how I feel about Ewan McGregor with a French dialect.
• Oh dear God!  What kind of dialect is that for Mrs. Potts??  It's sounds awful and fake!  Who the fuck did they cast?  *looks it up*  Ohhh, Emma Thompson.  What have you done?  I'm not angry, just very disappointed.
• Wait, so the feather duster is a peacock?  Err, a peacock-shaped feather duster??  Je suis confus.
• So if we're gonna add new songs, why not include "Home" from the Broadway version?  It's very pretty.
• Reflection:  well, if Hermione can't handle the easy notes of the opening number, there's no way she could handle "Home."
• They're all peacock feather dusters/showgirls?  What happened to the dancing napkins?
• *angry sniff as I played a dancing napkin in the stage version*
• They cut our favorite line!!!  *throws movie across the room*
• "You've got a library?"
• "With books!"
• So the prince/Beast was a spoiled brat because his father abused him?
• I found this extra background on the Beast largely unnecessary.  Why can't he just have been a spoiled douche like the 1991 film said?  Why do we have to blame parents we never meet?  It just opens up more questions and doesn't really resolve anything.
• It does attempt to explain why the servants were cursed along with him (because they "did nothing"), but clumsily and unsatisfactorily.
• I don't understand the reason behind changing/adding lyrics to the existing songs, especially in "Gaston."
• Speaking of unnecessary changes/additions:  Bard and Olaf take Kevin Kline out into the woods and tie him to a tree?  And then a "hag" (but not really) saves him and he confronts them about leaving him to die and THEN they try to sentence him to an insane asylum??  Super unnecessary and it robbed Olaf of another bit of song.
• Truly, he was underutilized in this movie.
• I'm not sure how I feel about the Beast just happening to show Belle the library as opposed to presenting it as a gift he (well, the servants, really) know(s) she'll like.
• I guess that's what happens when you CUT MY FAVORITE LINE!
• The "trip to Paris"/childhood home scene also felt unnecessary.
• YAS QUEEN!  You wear that Marie Antoinette drag!
• A friend of mine said they enjoyed Bard's performance as Gaston, that when he needed to be dark, he got dark.
• Disagree.  I mean, he did fine, but the animated Gaston, when he starts mocking the Beast and looks rather crazed, is far scarier, in my opinion.  Bard's Gaston is a little one-note.
• Belle and the Beast's reuniting felt...anticlimactic?  Maybe Hermione and Cousin Matthew just didn't have any real acting chemistry together?
• One change from the animated film that I did appreciate:  when all of the castle's staff slowly began changing to objects permanently.  That was heart-breaking and very well done.
• Olaf and the drag guy from before (I think?) dancing together at the end.  Brief, but I appreciate it.

All in all, I like the original animated version much better.  This had some nice touches, but I feel like this movie wasn't sure what it wanted to be; it ended up trying to be two or three different things, but doing none of them well.