Review of Beauty and the Beast (2017) by Trojan R — 06 Sep 2017

Excellent live-action movie remake to an animated Disney classic. Saw it twice in the theater and bought the BluRay/DVD/Digital HD combo pack. Spot-on performances by the entire ensemble cast, with especially standout portrayals by Emma Watson as Belle & Luke Evans as Gaston. Ewan McGregor as as Lumiere, Kevin Kline as Maurice, Emma Thompson as Ms. Potts, and Dan Stevens as the Prince/Beast also gave solid admirable efforts.

Emma Watson gave an overall excellent standout performance as Belle, her singing was probably the "weakest" part of her portrayal. She has a pleasant singing voice, just not the vocal range compared to the other character roles and cast members in movie. The opening number when she was introduced as Belle sounded nice, but was a bit over-produced and "auto-tuned". To be fair, all the cast members singing vocals in the movie were likely "auto-tuned" and processed to varying extents. That is the nature of a movie studio production, especially in a musical driven version. So to focus critiques only on Emma Watson's vocals as being "auto-tuned" in the opening scene introducing Belle's character seems objectively unfair. I thought her later singing moments as Belle in the movie got noticeably better and sounded more natural as the film went along. Her best singing scene was her last section, during the somber "How Does A Moment Last Forever" portion when the Beast/Prince brings Belle to Paris, France using his enchanted magical book to the small chateau where Belle's mother passed away from the plague when she was a baby. She exuded an emotional natural singing voice to capture and portray that sad somber moment very well during that scene of the movie. Emma Watson's sincere acting, charming persona, radiant appearance, and admirable vocals for a 1st time singer in a movie musical combined to superbly embrace and embody her role as Belle with graceful style.

Overall, fabulous and enchanting performances by the ensemble cast. Great work on the production, costumes, direction, and CGI special effects by everyone involved in the movie. Well done!