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nineveh_ukI have said elsewhere how much I like the 1991 Disney animated Beauty and the Beast. It is engaging, inventive, full of charm, with an excellent score, and in Belle, the Beast, and the villainous Gaston, excellent characters.*
So when the 'live action' version was on over Christmas I recorded it, and yesterday and today I watched it.
It was actually a lot better than I expected. It looks lovely** and a reasonable amount of visual energy, though there are places where it sags in comparison to the cartoon, which is not burdened by having to look 'real'. It develops Belle's father from a a pantomime figure to a more rounded one, and La Fou becomes if not three-dimensional, then at least two. The horror of the servants' situation, knowing they face being like this forever, is effectively enhanced. Emma Watson is fine, and frankly I was expecting the Auto-Tune to be much more of an issue than it was. Luke Evans as Gaston is very good.
Unfortunately, the good bits can't disguise that it has two big problems.
The first is Dan Stevens. He is really good in the first and last 5 minutes of the film as the human prince. You can see clearly why they cast him. He is handsome, charismatic, and at the end is instantly engaging and the final ballroom scene works because of it. Unfortunately, he spends the other 1 hour and 50 minutes in a fursuit, and his charisma in human form extends neither to his CGIed hairy face, nor to his singing voice. Nor does Watson have the kind of presence that can lend itself to her co-stars by proximity. It is hardly Stevens' fault that the CGI can't decide quite whether it wants to make him monstrous or human and appears scared to be too dramatic about it. But without a powerful voice to create the character, the Beast never seems well, sufficiently animated. The Beast's major solo from the musical, If I can't love her (here sung by Josh Groban) is replaced by a new one Evermore, and I assume that was at least partly that they couldn't audio process the former sufficiently to make it work. All the extra reverb in the world can only help up to a certain point. TL:DR They should have cast a singer, and if necessary had someone else be the human prince with his voice dubbed.
The other problem is that fairy tale, animation, and musical theatre all have that certain layer of artifice that allows us watch Belle fall in love with the Beast and not think "but, bestiality". Film that is trying to be realistic does not allow that distance. So there end up being moments in which it's just weird.
I ended up thinking that there really needs to be a modern romcom version in which everything ends up happily ever after because the young woman is really into what she assumes to be the Beast's commitment to his surprisingly realistic fursona.
*I really regret that I didn't see the musical in Oxford a few years ago - while I wasn't sure I could take someone in a teapot costume seriously, I should have got over myself and said I would shut my eyes if necessary!
**Except for Belle's ball dress, which was rightly condemned as naff by the internet.
So when the 'live action' version was on over Christmas I recorded it, and yesterday and today I watched it.
It was actually a lot better than I expected. It looks lovely** and a reasonable amount of visual energy, though there are places where it sags in comparison to the cartoon, which is not burdened by having to look 'real'. It develops Belle's father from a a pantomime figure to a more rounded one, and La Fou becomes if not three-dimensional, then at least two. The horror of the servants' situation, knowing they face being like this forever, is effectively enhanced. Emma Watson is fine, and frankly I was expecting the Auto-Tune to be much more of an issue than it was. Luke Evans as Gaston is very good.
Unfortunately, the good bits can't disguise that it has two big problems.
The first is Dan Stevens. He is really good in the first and last 5 minutes of the film as the human prince. You can see clearly why they cast him. He is handsome, charismatic, and at the end is instantly engaging and the final ballroom scene works because of it. Unfortunately, he spends the other 1 hour and 50 minutes in a fursuit, and his charisma in human form extends neither to his CGIed hairy face, nor to his singing voice. Nor does Watson have the kind of presence that can lend itself to her co-stars by proximity. It is hardly Stevens' fault that the CGI can't decide quite whether it wants to make him monstrous or human and appears scared to be too dramatic about it. But without a powerful voice to create the character, the Beast never seems well, sufficiently animated. The Beast's major solo from the musical, If I can't love her (here sung by Josh Groban) is replaced by a new one Evermore, and I assume that was at least partly that they couldn't audio process the former sufficiently to make it work. All the extra reverb in the world can only help up to a certain point. TL:DR They should have cast a singer, and if necessary had someone else be the human prince with his voice dubbed.
The other problem is that fairy tale, animation, and musical theatre all have that certain layer of artifice that allows us watch Belle fall in love with the Beast and not think "but, bestiality". Film that is trying to be realistic does not allow that distance. So there end up being moments in which it's just weird.
I ended up thinking that there really needs to be a modern romcom version in which everything ends up happily ever after because the young woman is really into what she assumes to be the Beast's commitment to his surprisingly realistic fursona.
*I really regret that I didn't see the musical in Oxford a few years ago - while I wasn't sure I could take someone in a teapot costume seriously, I should have got over myself and said I would shut my eyes if necessary!
**Except for Belle's ball dress, which was rightly condemned as naff by the internet.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-01-13 03:15 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-01-13 08:31 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-01-13 06:55 pm (UTC)Have you read “Fandom for Robots?” https://uncannymagazine.com/article/fandom-for-robots/
It’s a lovely and touching story about writing fanfic when you can’t get enough representation from the canon media – but also, by the end of the story, Computron’s new friends still think he’s just *really* committed to his online role-play.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-01-13 08:33 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-01-15 07:34 am (UTC)