It’s finally here: the movie that nearly everyone has been eagerly anticipating. People love Emma Watson as Hermione Granger in the "Harry Potter "movies and she’s finally back, but in a very different role. "Beauty and the Beast "opened in theaters on March 17, 2017, and on opening weekend, earned $174.8 million dollars. People have been waiting for this movie ever since they first dropped teasers of Emma Watson singing bits and pieces from the original score. I’m going to try my best and talk about why I love this movie so much. There are probably going to be some spoilers so I would recommend coming back to read this after you’ve gone and seen the movie.
I was lucky enough to see it the Saturday of its opening weekend with some great friends. Since I’m a poor college student I don’t get to go to movies since they can be fairly expensive nowadays. "Beauty and the Beast "was probably the one movie I was looking forward to this year. Of course, I’m going to be seeing movies like "Logan "and "Guardians of the Galaxy 2. "But "Beauty and the Beast "has been such a big part of my life for such a long time (I’m currently working on writing a gender swapped retelling of this classic story but that’s for an entirely different article).
I remember being younger and being absolutely terrified of most Disney movies as I was growing up. It wasn’t until I started becoming an avid reader that I discovered why I felt so connected with Belle as a character. As a kid I had a hard time wanting to leave my house so I just stayed at home and read novels in a day or two. I still am able to read that fast, but I love when I can be completely enthralled in a novel. There hadn’t been a Disney princess before Belle that I really connected with before "Beauty and the Beast," and even that wasn’t until I was a preteen.
So let’s get into the actual review of the movie.
I love Emma Watson just in general. I think she’s a great role model for both men and women. Many people were complaining that they didn’t think she fit the role of Belle but I think she pulled it off wonderfully. I was completely immersed in the film from the moment the Beast’s castle appeared in the opening Disney sequence. I think that this movie in comparison with the original was, dare I say, even better. There were so many plot holes in the original movie. I never knew why the prince had been a spoiled brat in the first place or why Belle and her father had moved to that crappy little village. Emma Watson’s version of "Beauty and the Beast" filled in these gaps beautifully. In the beginning of the film there are small parts of dialogue that don’t get tied in until you watch the whole thing all the way through, which I also really appreciated. Many of the characters that were trapped in the castle had wonderfully fleshed out backstories.
The other major complaint that people had was the music. People complain that Emma Watson was so auto-tuned that the music pulled them out of the story. I actually love her voice. I thought it was beautiful and worked really well for Belle’s character. I also don’t know much about music in general so there may have been some things that people who are experts in the field might catch more easily than I could.
For me, personally, I couldn’t get past the characters like Lumiere and Cogsworth. It took me awhile to suspend my disbelief because they looked fairly out of place. Other than this I really loved this movie. I highly recommend you go and see it before it leaves theaters. I think it’s popular for a reason. It’s crazy to me that people are going to grow up with Emma Watson as Belle, and not just a hand-drawn character as the princess. In a way, I’m jealous, but I loved this movie with my whole heart and I can’t wait until I can see it in theaters again.
