Beauty and the Beast

Assuming some of you read this blog regularly you may remember that Cinderella was the first film I ever reviewed here. I didn't really like it.

This, I loved. One might argue that it's cheap to make a film that counts on the young adults feeling nostalgic seeing it, but I think this is how you should make a live action film based on animation. It stayed true to the original and the things it added helped to fix up some of the plot holes people have long been wondering about. Questions like: "Who is Belle's mother and why doesn't anyone remember there used to be a prince living in a castle or wonder about what happened to the royal family? Is all the furniture in the castle alive?" are wittily answered.

I liked the add-on of the fact that if the last petal of the rose falls the enhanced servants would all turn into things forever. Inanimate objects. That being said, I think the reason as to why the servants ever deserved to be cursed was never very well given, the movie tried to offer something there too, but I don't think it was convincing.

I didn't grow up with the Beauty and The Beast animated film, I simply had the classic Disney-style book of it, but even I somehow knew these classic sings by now and I'm so glad they kept them! The songs were great. The new added songs were cool too, although I preferred the old ones. They haunted me for days. The added bits, like Belle being an inventor ,were cool too. Gaston was so perfectly cast! The casting was good all-in-all, but man, Gaston! He looks like he jumped out of that animation.

The visuals were gorgeous. I especially liked Lumiere's design. Then again I always liked him in the original too.