Beauty and the Beast (a movie review post)

What I want to do here is to talk about Disney's scheme of remaking their animated hits as live action movies, because, other than Maleficent, it seems rather pointless. However, when the goal is to make money, they are quite nicely fulfilling their point. Beauty and the Beast has already made over $200 million, and it hasn't, at the time of this writing, even been out a week. However, that discussion has nothing to do with the actual movie and should probably be saved for some other time. Or not had at all. Well, I'm sure plenty of other people are having it, so, probably, I will skip it other than to say that I liked the idea of re-telling the stories, as in Maleficent, from some other point of view.

Of course, the problem with talking about this movie, at least for me, is that it's very difficult to do as a thing all on its own without any kind of comparison or consideration of the 1991 animated feature. Probably, that's impossible. Disney's original Beauty was a landmark film and, really, changed animation forever. It was the first animated movie to be nominated for Best Picture at the Academy awards and was the cause of the best animated feature category being created. This movie, the remake, despite beautiful animation, can't be said to be anything more than conventional. In fact, my daughter's response to it (and she's the one who wanted to see it) was, "It was all right."

I think I liked it more than she did. But she hasn't seen the original in so long she barely remembers it, and it was never anything to her more than another movie on video. In post-Pixar days, it's difficult for earlier animated movies to hold up. Maybe that's why they need to be remade...

But part of what I liked about it had to do with nostalgia more than any inherent quality in the movie itself. Which is not to say that it's not a good movie. It is. It's a good movie, possibly very good, with some great performances and great music, which goes without saying since much of the music is from the original.

Also, as you could expect from a Disney movie, the cast is great. Emma Watson is charming. Kevin Kline is... well, he's Kevin Kline, so he was great. Dan Stevens looks princely, which, especially for Disney, is appropriate. Luke Evans is incredible and came close to stealing the whole movie. Not quite but close. Ewan McGregor and Ian McKellen are an amazing voice pair. They, also, came close to stealing the show.

Really, though, what it comes down to is this:
If you're a fan of the original because you remember seeing it in the theater when it was first released, you will probably get a big shot of nostalgia from this movie and love it. I'm going to guess that children will really enjoy it, too, but I don't know if it is the kind of movie that will actually compete with animated movies for their attention. For people in between, well, it's probably not going to be anything special. It's good, but it's not going to blow you away or change your life. It's probably worth seeing on the big screen, though.

Maleficent (a movie review post)

Let's get one thing straight right here at the outset: This is not any kind of prequel. This is not the live action prequel to Disney's Sleeping Beauty. It doesn't pretend to be. This is not like Oz the Great and Powerful (which is a prequel but which I still haven't seen).

No, Maleficent is the story of Sleeping Beauty told from the perspective of the villain. Sort of. At any rate, it's told from a different perspective than the one that has been presented in popular culture for the last half century and more. I think they did an amazing job.

The movie is magnificent to look at. The tree men that serve as the border guards are astounding and the land serpent was... well, that was incredible. Not to mention the work they did on Flittle, Knotgrass, and Thistletwit. And the dragon! Well, I think it's enough to say that the movie looked amazing, but, then, there is also Angeline Jolie who was impeccable in her role. Not that there wasn't makeup to go with that, but I think she almost didn't need any help pulling off the fairy look. Except for the wings. I think it's safe to bet that she doesn't have her own wings.

The performances were excellent, especially Jolie. Elle Fanning pulled off exactly the persona of someone who is happy and beautiful all the time. Sharlto Copley was crazy scary... or, maybe, he was scary crazy. One of the two. The three fairies pulled off the same sort of bickering as the fairies in the animated Sleeping Beauty; they were wonderful and hilarious. And Sam Riley was great, too.

The only possible issue with the movie is the whole "true love" thing. Disney continues to try to undo its whole cliche around that theme, which is fine and good, but it hasn't even been a year since Frozen, so I hope this is not a new trend, taking the "true love" theme in some other direction every movie for the next... well, who could even guess how long that could go on. Anyway, it was fine for this movie and handled well, but 3/4 of my family reacted in the same way to it: "I hope this isn't going to be their new thing." I guess we'll just have to wait and see on that one.

Overall, this is a great movie. It has everything you could want, none of which I'll name, because that would mean spoilers, even if I did already mention the dragon. But, then, we all knew about the dragon, right? Wait, it doesn't have lightsabers, but I think that's okay. I'll just put it like this: My wife cried. It's almost a certain thing that a movie is good if my wife cries, so there you are. This one gets 5 tears.