This tale as old as time has been given an update, and it looks really like the last version. Director Bill Condon clearly has a slavish dedication to preserving the essence of the 1991 animated film but it all looks a little…what’s the word…ugly. There’s a whole lot of CGI in there and it would probably be fair to say that it’s not all complete. It never quite feels as though the actors are really within the settings and that could get become even more glaring in a feature film.
Still, there are lots of interesting things in there including a look at Belle as a child showing some added depth to the backstory. Luckily no one has any idea what Emma Watson looked like growing up, so the casting doesn’t look rubbish in any way. We also get a decent joke with Luke Evans’ Gaston and a nice look at Lumiere and Cogsworth who both look just the wrong side of weird and creepy. Not quite as much as Chip who could easily be the thing of nightmares for generations.
Dan Stevens, Ewan McGregor, Josh Gad, Emma Thomson, Ian McKellan and Kevin Kline also star.
Beauty and the Beast arrives in cinemas on 17 March 2017
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