Mabuse

It was pretty good. Casting was excellent except for Ewen McGreggor. Why cast a guy with a Scottish accent to do a French accent? He sounded horrible.

Overall I think it's the best constructed of all the versions of BATB I've seen. The one shortcoming of Disney's animated version is that the plot is sloppy. Here they've borrowed a bit from Cocteau's version of the tale and the additions better establish the characters' motivations. There were also a few design nods to that film which were fun to spot.

This new version's greatest achievement is making us care about the furniture and decorations. In the animated version they are comic relief. I never had any deep feeling about Lumiere's situation. In this new version I got a bit choked up about the fate of the servents/furniture.

The 3D commits the biggest sin of the 3D format, thrusting things in the viewer's face for no other reason than to show off the technology.

Also, the gay thing is about as gay as Chuck Norris, which is to say it's not really gay at all. More like burlesque. It'd be like saying Monty Python is gay because the men dress as women.

rexinnih

Saw it last weekend with the family

Good but thought it lacked the heart of the animated version
Extra songs did not compare to the original musical score
Didn't mind the characters they introduced
The "gay" thing was amusing but seemed to overplay it a bit

Kal-El

Saw this last night with my wife. I ended up loving it. Random thoughts:
- It didn’t *get* me until “Something There”
- Be Our Guest which is supposed to be the big hoedown song lacked some serious punch. Why did they NOT do the plates-form-the-eiffel-tower bit at the line, “after all miss, this is France!”. That’s an iconic image of that song.
- I liked the added element of them turning more inanimate as each petal fell and the castle slowly crumbling down. Made the stakes a little bigger than them just staying talking furniture if the curse was never lifted.
- The trip to Belle’s Paris home was a nice touch along with the revelation of what happened to her mother
- I still don’t get why the first song is auto-tuned to death when Emma Watson sounded perfectly fine in “Days in the Sun” and “How Does a Moment Last Forever”.
- Luke Evans was fun as Gaston. Giving him some type of PTSD as the excuse for his sudden murderous turn didn’t bother me.
- I was dreading LeFou being gay when I heard about it. Not that I have anything against it, I just always thought he was more a fanboy than anything. Kinda like Kylo Ren
- LOVED the new songs especially Days in the sun. Evermore was nice as well.
- Is it me, or was there no Paige O’Hara (original Belle) cameo?

windom

I haven't seen the movie, but doesn't this take place well before the Eiffel Tower was built?

I thought this new one took place in England since the trailer showed Belle reading a book written in English and the sign in the bar was English. Also Belle seemed to have a British accent.

Kal-El

So did the timeline of the cartoon. Didn't stop them from doing it there. Plus, I don't think it matters whether or not it was already built in the movie's timeline considering we have talking candelabras and clocks. It was iconic.

There is a voice-over narration at the beginning that sets it in France.

Michael Corvin

Saw this yesterday and loved it. Wife, kids, my parents...all loved it. The women were in tears by the end.

The pros:
The highlight for me was the opening number. It was so grand and amazingly well done with so many speaking/singing parts. That's always been one of my favorite sequences in all of the 90's Disney flicks and the live action delivers in spades on this one.

I was never into Harry Potter but I dug Emma Watson. She performed admirably and I had no qualms with her performance. I was fine with all the voice work as well. I didn't recognize a few of them until the credits. Luke Evans was fantastic as Gaston. That was a role I was dreading would come up short, but he was great. Kevin Kline shined in a role that could have easily been forgotten.

I too loved the added stakes of the castle slowly crumbling and the characters slowly turning inanimate. Whisking Belle off to France to see where she came from was a nice touch.

Mini-pro: I loved that they used the Beast's castle for the Disney logo to start the flick. That was a very cool little touch.

The cons:
The added songs. Total filler. Menken and Ashman created perfection 25 years ago, no need to go messing with it. I'm not a fan of Human Again or the crap Broadway has added either.

Be Our Guest - was lacking some serious "punch" as Kal-el said, which is funny because that's the exact phrase that came to mind as I was watching it. It needed to be bigger and have more oomph.

Beauty & the Beast - easily the worst rendition of the song to date.

The ballroom scene fell completely flat. All the lights were cool looking but it was just bad. How do you fuck up the most important and iconic scene of the entire movie?

The whatever:
LeFou gay? It's 2017, why the fuck does anyone care? Holy shit people need to move the fuck on with their lives. I was expecting some egregious moment but it's all as tame as can be(blink and you miss it) and will fly over kids heads anyway.

Gaston scene: I didn't realize it until it was posted above, but yeah, where's the beer? I was also wondering how they were going to show Gaston's pecs ("every last inch of me's covered in hair!") since Evans doesn't appear to be a big guy. Oh, they just cut it out of the song completely. Okay then. It was a funny moment in the original. Actually, checking google, they changed the lyrics of the entire song quite a bit which might edge this to more of a con. The scene is well done though.

Belle's blue dress. Why did it look like half of it was tucked into her waistline through the first half of the movie? Odd design choice.

Overall: 4.5 out of 5.

Brack

Count me in with the yay crowd. Considering it had the difficulty of capturing the magic of the original, I thoroughly enjoyed it even though I knew when every big moment was going to happen. It runs at a brisk pace and the performances are all pretty good. I even liked some of the additional songs, particularly How Does a Moment Last Forever, Days In the Sun, and Evermore.

Making LeFou "gay" was, like some others have said, barely even a thing. The original character was so far up Gaston's ass that it seemed perfectly natural.

I couldn't help but laugh at the "size of a barge" line when Luke Evans can't be more than six feet tall (if that, I think the provided height for the actor online is being a bit generous), and while fit, just isn't very physically imposing. I'm not asking for a WWE-sized actor, but someone a bit larger looking (i.e. Nathan Fillion) would have worked better, though his singing voice was great, so I'm being more nitpicky than anything else.

Wouldn't mind seeing it again in a not-so-packed crowd (thank goodness for reserved seating). I really hope AMC opens a Dolby Cinema in the theater closer to where I live, but I'm just lucky it was still having showings there in the film's third weekend out.

asianxcore

Saw this earlier today. It was alright.

The new songs didn't feel very memorable for me, neither did the new scenes. Also, even though a lyric change in 'Beauty & The Beast' was something Ashman originally wrote for the Animated Film, hearing 'Famine turns to feast' among a beautiful dance sequence was sort of odd.

The Beast's look was inconsistent for me as well. There are times he looked great and other times he looked goofy.

JimRochester

We enjoyed this immensely. Emma Watson is cute as anything but her singing is definitely a weak link. Pleasant but not very strong. Nowhere close to Meryl Streep in Mama Mia kinda crappy and campy. Will definitely pick this up when it is released.

bluetoast

I enjoyed it. Though yeah, I expected a bit more during Be Our Guest. And since the CGI chandelier was such a huge deal in the original movie, I expected there to be a singular one during the title song, but whatever.

I like the expanded reasoning for the Beast to be transformed, since in the cartoon he would have just been a kid rejecting a stranger. In this, they actually showed him being selfish, so that was cool. Though it's still kind of funny that Belle never referred to him by name throughout the movie.

Since this crossed a billion, if (or when) they do a sequel, I wonder if they'll end up doing that sequel where it all takes place during the time Belle gets to know the Beast, or something more high stakes.

DVD Josh

Saw it with the family over the weekend. I thought it was very well done. I thought the voice acting was well done, particularly Luminere (who I thought was stanley tucci at first, lol).

If anything, the weakest link was Watson, who I felt was horribly miscast. From her average singing voice to below average acting, plus the fact she looks like she's 12, I just didn't care for her at all.

I thought Be Our Guest was a fun number and I too enjoyed the fact that something happened each time the pedals fell which did add an element I thought was interesting to the plot.

I highly doubt there will be a sequel. They will just make another classic into a live action movie as they have been doing and will be doing with Dumbo and Lion King. Would not surprise me to see Aladdin or a proper snow white.

Obi-Wanma

Aladdin is already in development.

DVD Josh

There you have it.

TomOpus

Movie hit $1.1 billion worldwide. I thought there was a review thread but guess not. I would've been curious what the poll would look like.

TheMovieman

Not sure if I've ever been so disinterested in a movie before; a couple times I nearly fell asleep. Outside of some good production designs, really hated this movie.

*¾/*****, (D+, 3.4/10, 1.25/4)

fumanstan

I ended up really enjoying the movie more then I thought, especially since I was never in love with the original animated movie. The new songs were forgettable, but I loved the additional story details added as far as Belle's parents, the Beast's back story, as well as all the other servants. No issues at all with the casting, although I do agree some of the songs should have been bigger "moments" like it was in the cartoon.

My wife didn't like that the Beast's human actor should have been more attractive

redrum

Freeform channel is airing this tomorrow and sunday

TheMovieman

Obviously the animated version but figured I'd say that since this is the thread for the live action one.

OldBoy

I was gonna say. No way live action. I look forward to seeing this but a little wary...

redrum

No its the live action

Obi-Wanma

Not what my guide says. I think it's more likely that your guide is wrong than Disney is airing a just released on home video film on a second tier ad supported cable network.

redrum

Haha ya Charter is probably wrong

Freeform is owned by Disney though

Obi-Wanma

Yeah, by 2nd tier, I just meant they usually don't get first run movies.

If they were going to air something this big, this soon, it would be on the Disney Channel, or even ABC, but not Free Form.

Even then, I would say this goes to a pay cable network before anywhere else. They're still trying to sell it to you on demand, in blu, DMA, etc. No need to give it away.

TheMovieman

Mine has the animated version.

Jon2

It's possible it's the recent French version, which I just saw on some cable channel last night. It was in French with subtitles. Clearly takes it's influence from the Cocteau version, but without the spookiness. Found it to be visually fantastic with a more involved, although choppy, story than the Disney version (which I thoroughly enjoyed, btw).

It's available at BB for $14.99. I had though about getting it as a blind buy, which I seldom do. Now I wish I had, as it would have been worth it. Excellent version.