DISNEY’S BEAUTY AND THE BEAST REBOOT
Rebooting Beauty so soon? Well, Disney have pulled it off – thanks to a great cast, stunning choreography... and Emma Watson in her best post-Potter role
‘For a studio desperate to find another Frozen, this is about as risk-free as it gets for Disney’
Beauty And The Beast C ert: PG 2hrs 9mins ★★★★★
Research published last week revealed that the average gap between a much-loved film or television series and the inevitable reboot or remake is 30 years. That’s how long it takes, apparently, for us to get old enough to be all dewy-eyed and sentimental about some key component of our childhood and yet rich enough to rush out – naturally clutching our own children – to happily pay to see the remake.
The new version of Beauty And The Beast arrives in cinemas some four years ahead of schedule, the much-loved animated version having been released in 1991. But somehow it feels more recent than that – partly because of the long shelf-life of the DVD but more importantly because the original film was turned into a Broadway musical in 1994, had new songs added with the help of Tim Rice, and seems to be have been touring the world ever since.
So Disney are on very safe ground here. Yes, they’ve brought in Emma Watson to play Belle and Downton star Dan Stevens as the Beast, but the producers know this movie recipe works. They know the story works, they know the songs really work, and they know – somewhat strangely – that walking, talking clocks and candelabra work too. For a company desperate to find another Frozen – which took $1.2bn at the global box office – this is about as risk-free as it gets.
But that’s enough cynicism and carping, because this spectacular, live-action version is hugely enjoyable and features a cast, which, alongside Watson and Stevens, features Luke Evans, Ewan McGregor, Emma Thompson and Ian McKellen.
Watson, it is rumoured, was first choice to play Mia in La La Land – the role that eventually won an Oscar for Emma Stone – but she looks far more comfortable here playing the bookish and inventive Belle, who loves helping her father (Kevin Kline) make his clocks and toys but has outgrown the small hilltop village where they live and longs to escape, as she so passionately sings, ‘this provincial life’.
Instead, she finds herself constantly rebutting marriage proposals from love-struck, oafish musketeer Gaston (Evans).
Then her father goes to sell his clockwork toys – promising Belle he will bring her back a rose – gets lost in the forest, is nearly eaten by wolves and finds his only sanctuary is a dark, frostencircled castle where it’s always winter and where he makes the near-fatal error of picking an ice-encrusted rose.
He’s promptly locked up by the Beast who, because we were paying attention during the prologue, we know used to be a hedonistic, selfobsessed prince with a fondness for extravagant eye make-up. Until a beautiful enchantress got her magical paws on him and decided to teach him that vital lesson in life: that true beauty lies within.
Direction is by Bill Condon, a film-maker probably best known for the last two instalments of the
Twilight saga but whose more relevant success here is Dreamgirls, the 2006 film inspired by the story of The Supremes. Condon loves a big musical, and you can see that here, right from the stunningly choreographed opening number.
Of the two leads, Watson, who has spent half her lifetime acting opposite unseen visual effects, makes the bigger impact, and it’s good to see her getting at least one decent postPotter film under her belt. As for Stevens, he’s hidden away behind prosthetics, effects and a voice synthesiser and frankly could be anyone.
I have to confess there was an initial flash of disappointment as I realised that Lumiere and Cogsworth would be returning and that this was going to be a rerun of the Nineties cartoon rather than anything digging deeper into the original fairy tale. But, hey, they’re good fun and beautifully voiced.
Kline is sweetly spot-on as Belle’s father, Evans is a hoot as Gaston, and Josh Gad steals almost every scene he’s in as his sidekick, LeFou, a man wrestling – very quietly and unbeknownst even to himself – with his own sexuality. That’s
Beauty And the Beast 2017 – modern, entertaining but very familiar.