Beauty & The Beast Review: 6 Ups & 4 Downs
It's not The Jungle Book, but it'll do.
One of the year's most anticipated movies and sure to be a stonking box office hit regardless of reviews (which are, to be fair, pretty solid so far), Disney's live-action Beauty and the Beast is in cinemas now, and fans can finally relive the tale as old as time with an all-star cast and mind-boggling, state-of-the-art visual effects.
Is this take on the classic animated Best Picture nominee as good as you probably want it to be? No, it's certainly not on the high level of last year's The Jungle Book, but it still does a fine job of capturing the rich qualities of the source material while sprinkling on some more up-to-date flourishes.
If nothing else, it will cement the success of Disney's current conveyor-belt of live-action adaptations, what with Mulan, The Lion King, Dumbo and Aladdin all set for their own remakes.
Downs...
4. Emma Watson's Distractingly Autotuned Singing
It's no mere coincidence that Disney didn't release many clips of Emma Watson singing ahead of the movie's release, and that's because she's been regrettably autotuned into oblivion.
Though Belle thankfully isn't blessed with the movie's better songs anyway, it's still incredibly grating to the ears to hear her vocal tone flatten out robotically on certain notes that she clearly couldn't hit during recording.
It honestly would've been preferable to have an actual singer dub over Watson, or just hire an actress who could actually sing from the outset.
Thankfully most of the songs are free of such technological tampering, though there's definitely a whiff of it in Dan Stevens' brief sing-song as Beast (albeit masked somewhat by his digitally deepened voice).