Director Bill Condon’s Beauty
and the Beast gets off to an iffy start with a rather pedestrian opening
song and ends with a rather pedestrian dance (or, perhaps, it’s a bit of
jealousy on my part that I’m not dancing with Belle). However, the 2 hours and
a few minutes in between are absolutely a joy.
The main reason for the
film’s success is the brilliant choice of Emma Watson as the lead
character. Our little Hermione from the Harry
Potter films has grown up to be one of the most beautiful women to have
ever appeared on screen. Everything
about her performance is perfection. Thanks
to Casting Director Lucy Bevan, who, also, made a brilliant choice for Cinderella,
a few years ago.
Kevin Kline, Stanley
Tucci, Ewan McGregor, Ian McEllen, Emma Thompson and Gugu Mbatha-Raw are
wonderful in their roles, as well.
And, hats off to
Production Designer Sarah Greenwood for some of the most innovative sets you’ll
ever see.
I couldn’t help thinking
that La
La Land was a wonderful setup for preparing younger audiences to the
joys of musical films and, therefore, a great benefit to Composer Alan Menken’s
score. I hope the song Be
Our Guest will be remembered for this year’s award nominations.
Bottom line, bring the
kids and have a great time at the movies.
I give Beauty
and the Beast a 4.3 out of 5.
No comments:
Post a Comment