A live-action remake of the 1991 Disney animation. Emma Watson stars as Belle, Dan Stevens as The Beast and Luke Evans as Gaston.

This is a particularly clumsy and lifeless entry into the live-action-retelling catalogue. It’s colourful but devoid of intrigue or emotion. The set design reflects this; they clearly spent some real money in getting this film to look great yet somehow the feeling of being on a sound stage is more prominent than ever. It’s more Disneyland than Disney film.

Emma Watson acts like she’s in a 6th form stage play written by her dad, and there’s no real spark between her and Stevens’ CGI beast. The supporting cast hold it together but the charming animated objects you know and love are now merely soulless CG pastiches of the originals.

There’s also something weird about how this has been edited together. The camera sweeps and swoops around the cool set yet there’s little attention to detail or continuity. People teleport around with every cut, Belle goes round the same corner six times and objects seem to magically shift around. I’m not one to pick up on these usually but at some points you get bombarded with scenes that make no sense.

The obvious question with all of these recent remakes is ‘why?’ but just remember that this cost $160m to make and it took over $1.2b at the box office. When you’re making that much cash, wasting everybody’s time is a small price to pay.

http://benoliver999.com/film/2017/07/21/beautyandthebeast/

A little like "Into the Woods" (2014) this is a technically ambitious attempt to reconcile animation and live action with an excellent cast. Again, it works spectacularly as a piece of cinematic innovation - but has no spirit. We know the story: a vain Prince is cursed by a sorceress to remain shut up, hideously disfigured, in his castle until the spell is broken by true love's tear. "Belle" (Emma Watson) does well to keep this almost Ziegfeld-esque extravaganza on track. She manages to avoid the amorous intentions of Luke Evans as "Gaston" before ending up doing the prisoner swap for her father in the castle of the Prince - an extremely well made up Dan Stevens. The additional voice cast line up is great - Kevin Kline, Sir Ian McKellan, Ewan McGregor, Emma Thompson and Stanley Tucci. The songs are reprised from the 1991 version of the story but without the charm and mischief of their original iterations; they are just too precise and dare I say "professional". The technology has now super-subsumed every element of the process to the point that it is almost clinically delivered. The characters and story are still great, but please, Disney, leave something a little rough around the edges for us....

**An admirable adaptation of a classic tale.**

One of the best live-action Disney adaptations, even though that isn’t difficult to achieve, Beauty and The Beast (2017) excellently transports the audience into the magical world of the Beast’s magical and cursed castle. The scale of the tiny claustrophobic village contrasted with the grandiose halls of the enchanted clearly presents the different worlds of the main characters despite grappling with the same loneliness. The cast has two major standouts in Luke Evans’ Gaston and Ewan McGregor’s Lumière. The aesthetics and CGI of this movie are stunning and enhance the film rather than distracting, which would be so easy with so many computer-animated characters.

Very disappointed in this movie. I was expecting it to be as good as the cartoon one, but it wasn't. It was actually kind of boring. I also didn't buy in to thier chemistry at all. It looked really cool though.

**Spoilers**

The live action remake of "Beauty and the Beast" was good, but it failed to capture the magic of the cartoon version. There were somethings that they got right, and others that dragged on.

I thought "Be Our Guest" was done beautifully. The 3d made it even more enchanting. The main characters' backstories also added some depth to them. However, there were some scenes that I felt added nothing to the story. Such as the search for Belle by Gaston and her father. The "No one is like Gaston" scene didn't have the bravado or arrogance of the original.

I also felt that Luke Evans was miscast. He wasn't the handsomest guy in town, nor was he the strongest. Which is why it was hard for me to accept him as the character. Emma Watson was serviceable. Her voice was fine, but it wasn't strong enough to carry Belle's songs. Dan Stevens was the best part of the film. I felt that he should have had more songs, because he has a beautiful baritone. Although his beast costume should have been more frightening.

Overall, it's a fun film to watch. Though, I wouldn't call it a classic.