Beauty and the Beast: Review

Beauty and the Beast is the latest Disney film to grace the big screen and is a live action remake of the 1991 animated musical. I felt a live action remake of Beauty and the Beast would go either one of two ways, be a hit like the remake of The Jungle Book or be a disaster like the Tarzan remake was. Fortunately, this remake is a triumph!

Having not watched the original Beauty and the Beast film in about a decade, I struggled to remember what exactly happened (only that there was some hairy dude and a singing candlestick?!), but in no time at all, the fantastic tale of love came straight back to me.

The story was fantastic, retaining the key features from the original Beauty and the Beast whilst incorporating modern twists into the film at certain points as well. The cast is fantastic, there is not one character I can fault and there was a stand out performance from Josh Gad, best known as the voice of Olaf, who played LeFou. Whilst he is the most controversial character (his lust over Gaston), he is definitely one of the funniest characters. Emma Watson plays the role of Belle brilliantly too, although I couldn’t help but think of her as Hermione Granger!

Now I’m no lover of musicals but the singing and dancing is really is what makes this film great! I thought Ewan McGregor who played Lumiere was particularly great and I was impressed with his vocal ability. Something else I was particularly impressed with was the CGI, something which Disney seem to have perfected in recent live action films. The Beast looked incredible and the rest of the household objects such as Cogsworth the mantel clock also looked spot on.

Go and watch, wait for the DVD or avoid altogether? –  If you are looking for a great family film to go and watch then I would definitely recommend going to watch Beauty and the Beast!

Rating: 8.0/10