I'm s huge fan of the original animated movie. That was as close to perfect as it gets. This version disappoints. Never mind the gay overtones, who cares in this day and age, but Emma Watson had two facial expressions- two. She's not a horrible singer but when the first voice we hear in the movie belongs to Audra MacDonald, Ms Watson's thin, reedy voice doesn't come close. As always Kevin Kline is a stand out in his role. Not a bad movie but after all the hype, I expected spectacular.

Disney has gotten on a kick of making live action versions of their classic cartoons, and why not? People are flocking to these things, so much so that this one made over 500 million in the US alone. Why come up with something original, when you can just redo the same thing and the people act like it is the best thing since sliced bread. Saves writers the trouble of being creative as you already have the basic structure of the story in place, just tweak it a bit and in this one they did not even bother to tweak it very much at all. Same movie essentially, but with a few added things here and there and a look that to me looks cheap. The beast looks good and some of the effects are alright, but it has a look of a movie that should have come on ABC as a special rather than a 150 plus budgeted movie meant for the big screen.

The story is essentially the same. A arrogant prince is cursed by some enchantress and turned into a hideous beast. The only way he can become human is if he can truly love and be loved by another. Enter Belle, played by Emma Watson. She is a odd one in the village as she just loves to read and everyone in town thinks she is quite the strange one. Of course, this does not stop town hunk, Gaston, from pining over her and wishing to make her his bride. Belle's father gets lost one night and ends up in the Beast's clutches and Belle finds him and takes his place and becomes the Beast's prisoner; however, soon the selfish Beast begins to feel for Belle and she for him.

I always thought Belle was one of the prettiest Disney princesses, so I am probably in the minority when I say, I thought Emma Watson was a horrible choice. She is so damn plain in the role as Belle and I have never understood why people think she is attractive at all. The rest of the cast is fine, I guess, but like I said, I just get a cheap television vibe when I watch this movie. About the only thing they really added that I thought worked was having Gaston be a bit more sinister in this one as he ties up Belle's father leaving him to the woods in this one. Makes one feel a bit better when he is killed than in the original where he was just a bit too eager to try and impress everyone and take out the Beast. He is more of an ass this go around and I think it works. They made his toady, Le Fou, gay in this one, and that works too. It makes more sense why he would keep wanting to hang around Gaston because he has a crush on him, himself.

So, this thing made money, another one, Maleficent also made money and several other live action ones have as well, so the trend will continue. Of course, I thought the choice for Aurora was horrible in that film too, they seem to want to pick zipper girls with no figures for these roles are plain janes. I guess it could be I am from a different generation and prefer a different look than the younger generation. I still say the film could be a reenactment in the Disneyworld theme park sans the scenes at Beast's castle though. Basically, give me the cartoon over this any day of the week.

If it were in a theater rather than a cinema, it would have been great.

But the fact is we saw this before when it was called Beauty & the Beast.

The songs we all heard before. Rather than an animated background you have a computer animated background but we have still seen it before.

We sit down and pay to watch a movie we already saw turn live action and follow the same plot, the same game, as the movie we fell in love with oh so many years ago.

We are living in an era for that, but we still want it to change at least a little.

Like all remakes it is dull and boring and utterly mindless. Like all remakes it makes changes that are unnecessary and irritating and in some cases, fairly insulting to the fans of the original: Belle, not her father, is the eccentric town inventor and that would, maybe, work if he wasn't supposed get locked up for being, well, the eccentric town inventor with a story about a Beast.

Take away the establishment of one character that is sort of necessary to the plot and give it to another where it is less important to advance the story and do it only because, well, it's a remake, you have to find at least one way to really insult the fans...

And changes like this are the only way to do it because, otherwise, you have the EXACT same movie you saw before with little changes made to really just drag the monotony out as much as you can.

I hate remakes, but the fact that it IS THE SAME MOVIE just makes it so much more monotonous to watch than your average remake.