Review of Beauty and the Beast (2017) by Socal R — 29 Jul 2017

Superb movie. Very entertaining live-action remake of a Disney animated classic. Saw it in the theater opening weekend and bought the movie on BluRay disc. The casting was 1st rate overall. Starting with Emma Watson, who portrayed Belle with modern enlightenment, radiance, independence, intelligence, strong-will, and fearless strength. While at the same time, instilling a sense of charm and touch of sweetness that gives the main character Belle a completeness and realism that forms the core of the movie. She embodied and naturally grew into the role of Belle as the movie developed and brought her animated character to life as well as could be imagined and portrayed in this live action remake. Other solid performances by the cast include Dan Stevens as the Beast/Prince. Luke Evans as Gaston, Ewan McGregor as Lumiere, Kevin Kline as Maurice, and Emma Thompson as Mrs. Potts. The overall casting selections was the primary strength of this Disney movie musical remake.

As far as the comments about auto-tuning vocals, this movie musical likely had it's fair share of vocal optimization and audio processing of the singing scenes during production release. Every musical production and studio recording album goes through that process. Why is that? Because even the best singers and musical artists generally sound better on their released studio recording albums compared to live event concert singing, so it is the nature of the process. I think Emma Watson and the rest of the cast each gave admirable vocal performances during their singing moments. Other than Luke Evans and Ewan McGregor, I don't think any of the other major actors and actresses portraying the other main characters roles had previous Broadway stage theater play experience. If this was casting for the Broadway musical version, then better singers and stage performers would have clearly been cast. But given this was casting for a movie/musical movie live-action remake, the combination acting talents and singing abilities of the actors and actresses were well-chosen and more than fit the bill to present this top-notch movie/musical production that will be remembered for generations to come.

This live action remake version of "Beauty & The Beast" has become an all-time Top 10 movie at the US domestic ($500+ million) and international worldwide ($1.26+ billion) in box office revenues. As both an overall success with critics and astonishing box office performance with audiences worldwide, the results and reactions speak for itself. Well done, great work, and amazing accomplishment by Walt Disney studios, director Bill Condon, and by the great acting ensemble cast. Looking forward to more live action remakes. Sensational achievement in movie making by everyone involved!