I hate this movie, really really dislike it. The Lion King is the laziest remake for just using the same script and shooting everything shot for shot the same as the original but this one is the most glaringly offensive. Everything about this movie is performative, it acts as though it is being progressive when in reality, it is just wearing the costume of being an ally.
This movie set out to fix problems with the original that no one had and in turn by doing that, made a worse movie. I look at this remake and realize that it had the opposite problem of The Lion King remake in which that did nothing new, this one did new things that made no sense for the story being told.
We're going to break from format with this one and not look at the similarities and differences but rather all the issues that I have with this movie because there are a lot. Let's start with the big one.
Performative Allyship
What do I mean by performative allyship? Quite simple, the performative politics of this movie are quite hollow and only serve to make the movie look as though it is being progressive when it really wasn't. There's a small issue of how the film felt the need to show us that Belle is smart by showing that she was the inventor and took that away from Maurice. In that, she invented the washing machine. It's a small moment but it's an indirect message that Belle in the original wasn't intelligent when that is far from the case.
This woke scene irks me but the next thing that this movie does straight-up offends me. This remake decided to introduce Disney's first Gay character. That's good. Who is said character?
This could have worked but this was not handled with care. There may have been some hints throughout the movie such as new LeFou telling the Bimbettes that they'd never get with Gaston. And Gaston is shocked that LeFou has never gotten with a woman. LeFou that women find him clingy, which if LeFou is supposed to be gay, I'm not a fan of.
However, director Bill Condon said that LeFou would have an exclusively gay moment in the movie. Well, I remember sitting in the theater watching the movie and waiting for this scene. It came in the end when people were dancing at the palace where LeFou is dancing with a woman and man cuts in. It had a feeling of that was it. However, people smarter than I have written on this point in great length. This 2017 Bustle article goes into more detail about the issue that was presented in doing the least amount of work when presenting LeFou as gay.
I'm certainly not going to praise the director and cast for representing the gay community when they did so little to represent us. LeFou's dance scene was further diminished by the fact that it wasn't even "exclusively" gay. As Vulture pointed out, you could still see the other straight couples in the shot. This reduces LeFou's "incredible moment" to really just a large celebration of mostly straight love with a same-sex couple thrown in.
As a Bisexual man, I may not have the right to speak over Gay people but the LGTBQ+ community deserves better than what Condon gave us. But I'm not sure Disney learned from this and did better in the future. Oh wait, they didn't because they did the same thing with the Lesbian cyclops cop in Onward.
I guess the TV side will just have to pick up the slack as seen in shows on Disney+ such as High School Musical: The Musical: The Series that has an adorable gay couple and the show that just debuted on Disney+, Love, Victor, a spinoff of one of my favorite movies. Oh wait, it was moved to Hulu.
Disney, you have a lot of LGTBQ+ fans and as one, please treat our community better than these three examples. Let's move on from this entry before I blow a gasket.
Awful Singing
Listen to this number. I like Emma Watson, she has done a lot of good work and I grew up with her as Hermione but this singing is not good. And it's actually worse when you hear it in Something There.
This was just bad. But the worst offender is Emma Thompson's rendition of the title song and this is not just me comparing the song to Angela Lansbury. Emma Thompson is a great actress but her singing here does not work.
This is just yeesh and when you have someone that cannot sing the titular song of your movie, there's a problem. This brings us to the next issue.
Lifeless Musical Numbers
Beauty and the Beast is a musical and the animated movie is one of the best animated musicals of all time. Heck, one of the greatest musicals period. Just watch the opening of the original
It's so lively and exuberant but all of that was sucked out in this remake. There is no life to be found anywhere in this movie's numbers. They feel inauthentic and you can never get the feeling out of your head that this was filmed on a set and because of that, you can't buy into what the movie is selling. Moving on from this, there is also
Wasting a Talented Cast
This was a huge crime as this movie had so many bright starts but they get nothing to do. I mean you waste Audra McDonald by having her character constantly be asleep. What were you thinking? This cast deserved a better movie. Speaking of the cast, let's look at the Enchanted Objects.
Gawdy Enchanted Objects
The Enchanted Objects in the original had a cute and warm design to them that made them seem friendly. Even the Broadway show got this right.
But here, there is no warmth as they rely too much on the object part and forget that these are supposed to be characters as well. The Beast doesn't fare much better.
CGI Beast
Making The Beast CGI robs any chemistry that Dan Stevens and Emma Watson were meant to have. It just doesn't work because while Stevens may have been on set, The Beast was not. Using makeup and prosthetics would have gone a long way in selling that The Beast was actually there.
We have one last item that I wish to look at. Don't get me wrong, there are more issues but these are the ones that bugged me the most.
The Magic Book
When The Enchtrantess cursed The Beast, she gave him a magic book that could take anywhere if he just thought of the location. Why? This is so pointless and is a clear misunderstanding of why The Beast locked himself away in the tower. Also, why would you give someone that you punished a present? That doesn't make a lot of sense, we don't gift children when they color on the walls. We see it used once so that Belle can go to Paris to see what happened to her mother but that one scene does not make up for this needless thing brought into the movie.
This is not a good movie and before rewatching it, I thought The Lion King was the worst remake but I am so wrong, this is offensive on a whole other level. I could not in good conscious do the format I've been using as that would be dishonest with my feelings on this movie. It stinks and there is frankly no reason to watch this when the original is so much better. Join me next time as we look at a remake that doesn't anger me quite so much as we look at the remake of
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