Ugh

[wishdreamer27]

I saw Beauty and the Beast that featured Emma Watson and Dan Stevens and felt so let down by it. I just... I feel like it fundamentally misunderstood the entire point of the original film?

If I had to pinpoint why I didn't like it, I suppose it comes down to:

• Emma Watson being woefully miscast. I get in theory why she'd be cast, but honestly? I do not find her to be a good actor. She's very limited, lacking expressiveness, and looked bored for most part of it. (Taking this a little bit further, she stopped being Hermione to be after CoS.) I don't particularly care for her singing voice either, though in fairness, I don't mind autotuning. But there's such a glaring "Belle is not like other girls" vibe from this film, and that's just... FML.

• Changing the Beast from a dorky but bat-tempered and inept at politeness to a straight up Byronic hero, with even more reasons to go "oh look how tragic he is". Like his situation wasn't tragic enough. I'm also... kind of really annoyed that the Beast's horns are backwards? Like... they go the other way in the original?

• This kind of stilted both character development and romance IMO. It just... lacked.

• A lot of the additional plot points were unnecessary, and didn't really add anything to the movie. You had a book that could take the protagonists anywhere, and they only use it once? You have more of the Enchantress but don't let her do anything?  You have Belle invent a washing machine, but then don't let her invent anything else during the course of the movie? You have Belle discover/remember how her mother died by don't use it as a bonding moment between her and the Beast? SMH.

• The CGI was bad. Which is so weird, considering that The Jungle Book and Cinderella had really good CGI. But Emma Thompson and Chip were just... it didn't work for me.

• The pacing was so bad and slow? Belle should have tried to escape much sooner than she did -- like there were moments when she was about to, and she doesn't, and I'm left feeling like... just run, Belle. Get out as fast as you can.

• The songs were not impressive renditions. One thing I loved from The Jungle Book was how they reinterpretated the songs and made them their own, with it's own feel and flavour, (bar, sadly, Trust In Me, which was used for a credit song, but then Kaa was the iffy point in that movie because Kaa functioned as a flashback exposition when I rathered the slapstick cunning of the cartoon). I guess I'd rather have BatB follow in Cinderella's footsteps -- and not feature songs (bar one). Here they were -- empty and hollow, without much feeling IMO.

• (Speaking of, Cinderella's film was far more fulfilling -- at incorporating extra elements -- giving Kit and Ella a sweet love story and distinctive characterizations, oddly using Beauty and the Beast moments with Helena Bonham Carter as the fairy godmother much more cleverly than the actual 2017 film did. And I guess I'm perplexed at where BatB went wrong.)

• Gaston, honestly was my favourite part, and I thought Luke Evans was good, and delightful in that douchy-but-hilarious way that Gaston is, but sadly, Luke Evans is neither buff nor energetic enough.and that's honestly a pity because he was by far, the best part. Even if I thought that they decided to make Gaston to be far more brutal than he was in the original. Did they really have to make Gaston shoot the Beast three times?

But, the positives:

• Ian McKellen, Ewan McGregor, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Stanley Tucci and Audra McDonald were delightful. I still think there should have been more humour moments between them, but I adored them, and the fact they were a bit darker.

• Look, in fanfics, and in tv, and film, I do honestly find the trope Shipper On Deck to be really... iffy. (Problematic isn't the right word, but maybe creepy is?) I find intensely creepy a third person decides to say, lock two people in a closet and refuses to unlock the door, unless they kiss/admit to being a couple. Or do a bunch of questionable things all in order to get two people together, when... neither of them have asked for help. Here, I think -- and they really could have taken it further -- the fact that they wanted Belle and Beast to fall in love so the curse would be over for theirselves, and they wouldn't have to be funiture who lose their humanity day by day, is an interesting direction, and understandable, and I just... wish it could have been taken further than it was, because it got abandoned halfway through because this stupid movie doesn't commit.

• Kevin Kline deserved to be in a better movie, in all honestly. I love him and he's divine, and I liked very much how he handled Maurice. But he deserved to be in a better Beauty and the Beast movie than this one.

• I'm 50/50 on this one, but... LeFou paying people to sing along with him in the Gaston song. Like, yeah, it's funny, but... on the other hand, I wish that peope just wanted to sing joyfully and cheer him up because honestly, at the start of the original film, Gaston is likable.

• There was one moment, one, where I felt that Emma Watson looked, but not really acted like Belle. And that was when she was wearing the yellow dress -- which was badly designed and not fitting the film tbh -- and it's mostly because her hair was actually dark brown in the lighting, instead of her usual light brown hair, which made me wish that they had dyed Belle's hair a darker shade of brown or given her a wig, because it's not that hard, guys. Emma Watson has never looked like Belle to me, and this move has not convinced me otherwise.

I think, the greatest flaw of this film is that it feels generic and bland, and I didn't really get anything out of it like I did with both Cinderella and The Jungle Book, where both changes and additions were for the better, and this film was definitely for the worse.

However! I have two Beauty and the Beast fic recs! Because they're classics and old favourites:

Picture This -- AU. Is it possible to write a GastonBelle pairing that's believable and in character?

Amazingly, the answer is yes. It's light and whimsical and romantic and slapstick and charming in all the right places, which is unbelieveable, but it's a testament to the writer's talent.

The Coming Of Spring -- Happily Ever After is not quite what either expected.

This is sad and hurts in the best of ways, where after the curse is broken, they begin to realize that they are no longer compatible, and it's just beautiful.