Emma Watson and Dan Stevens star in a tale as old as 26 years, maybe more, in Disney’s live-action remake of the 1991 animated hit.
A rococo confection featuring fiendishly intricate production values, a bravura, coloratura-rich musical score and whizz-pop state-of-the-art effects, Disney’s latest iteration of the fairy tale Beauty and the Beast is more than just eye candy. It’s a Michelin-triple-starred master class in patisserie skills that transforms the cinematic equivalent of a sugar rush into a kind of crystal-meth-like narcotic high that lasts about two hours. Only once viewers have come down and digested it all might they feel like the whole experience was actually a little bland, lacking in depth and so effervescent as to be almost instantly forgettable.
Paradoxically, despite all the palpable budget spend on fancy computer effects, it’s the cheaper, old-school, real-world bits — like the big ensemble dance sequences or the moments when the actors interact directly with each other rather than with greenscreen illusions — that pack the biggest wallops.
Nevertheless, this live-action-meets-CGI musical directed by Bill Condon (Dreamgirls, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn) should hit the sweet spot with audiences worldwide. Adding bonus in box-office terms, its early spring release leaves it relatively few competitors, apart from Kong: Skull Island and Power Rangers on either side of its opening weekend.
Indeed, all credit should be due to Disney for canny planning on a meta level, one of the trademarks of its success over the years. This remake of the company’s 1991 animated hit tracks closely to the earlier version’s plot and story beats, includes revamps of all the old songs and arrives just in time to exploit generational nostalgia — to lure viewers who loved the last version as kids and are just becoming parents themselves. Since the 1960s, Disney has been rereleasing in roughly 25-year intervals their classic animated features, either theatrically or on home entertainment platforms. Now that all the old films are out there in the public domain, live-action remakes are the best way to keep the story brands alive, starting with Maleficent in 2014, Cinderellain 2015 and now this.
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