Okay, so I must be the only one on the planet not to have
seen the original Disney “Beauty and the Beast”. Seeing that it came out in
1991 when I was moving myself to London, I like to think that I had better
things to do at the time. Besides, I was aware of the general story, why did I
need to see it?
So this new Disney live action film come out and I’m a bit
interested. I do like Emma Watson. It’s been great to see her grow out of
Hermione Granger’s shadow and into a decent actress. I’m rather fond of Luke
Evans. I sort of like Dan Stevens even if he will never come out of Lady Mary
Crawley’s pall after that car crash on Downton Abbey – besides, he has lovely
blue eyes.
Sam and I took ourselves off to see this on our semi-regular
girls night out – not the animated version, but the 2017 Emma Watson, “gay-scandal in Malaysia” version.
And we loved every
minute of it.
The story is quite simple. Belle, a bit of a misfit in her
village is the daughter of a local merchant. The Merchant goes off to Paris to
sell his wares. Belle asks him to bring back a rose for her. On the way back
from the trip, the merchant strays off course where he ends up at the castle of
a once handsome prince, who having pissed off a local witch. The witch
has turned him into a beast – and quite a gnarly one at that. He has until the
last petal falls off of a rose to find somebody to love him as he loves her
back. (Yeah, not the greatest feminist message out there and as I have written
this word thirty times today it is front of mind) While picking said rose for
Belle, the Merchant the beast captures him – he’s not very happy about his roses going missing –
even if nobody has been around the place for years.
Back in the village, a vain git called Gaston is trying to
win Belle’s hand. She sees him for the rubbish suitor he would be and tells him
to go get stuffed. When her father’s horse returns without him, Belle goes to
search him out. Finding him inprisoned, she takes her father’s place. You'd think he'd like a visitor.
Okay – they you have the middle bit of the movie, the Beast
and Belle fall in love, Gaston comes to search her out, but not after being
rebuffed by her father. There is a big fight scene and then the witch reverses
the spell and they all live happily ever after.
Okay,
you don’t think about the slightly creepy through that there is this bloke –
turned into a beast, who is keeping a woman against her will (though thinking
about it, he does treat her well in captivity). You also overlook the fairly
bad case of Stockholm Syndrome which Belle appears to procure. And you can
forgive the overacting by most of the cast as this is a Disney Musical.
We loved
it. It was a fanstastic film to just sit back and enjoy. Emma Watson is the
quintessential Belle. Kevin Kline is both believable and fun as her father. I
was quite taken with Luke Evans as the dreadful, arrogant and redemption-less Gaston.
He was superb. And Josh Gad was brilliant as Le Fou, Gaston’s sidekick.
Much has
been made of the homosexual overtones from Le Fou’s admiration / love for
Gaston. Malaysia banned the film because of this. In my honest opinion, stupid
move. There is nothing to it. It’s very fun to watch, completely inoffensive
and could happily be construed as one many admiring another, if you wanted to.
I was shocked at Malaysia’s over-reaction to some fun scenes.
Other
cast members who provided voices, Ewan McGregor, Emma Thompson, Stanley Tucci
and Ian McKellen, to name a few, were great as the CGI furniture and cutlery
who keep the beast company.
This is
a fabulous film to take kids to, or bigger kids. It’s great fun. There isn’t an
over commitment to the songs and you leave with a big smile on your face, even
if you do wonder why Malaysia was having such a hard time with the fact that
two guys are dancing on screen. And they weren’t even twerking.
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