Beauty and the Beast (2017)

Nominated for Best Production Design and Best Costume Design   The original animated feature was my favorite Disney movie as a child and I was very skeptical when the powers that be announced a live-action remake.  I didn't hate on it existing, like I know a lot of people did, because I'm not necessarily opposed to updating or remaking classics.  I just didn't think it would be very good.  Pleasantly, I was wrong.

Belle (Emma Watson) and her inventor father, Maurice (Kevin Kline), have moved to a small town in the French countryside.  Belle finds it stiflingly boring and her only joy is borrowing books from the local clergyman (Ray Fearon) while avoiding the amorous intent of local war hero Gaston (Luke Evans).  When her father leaves to sell his wares, Belle asks only for a single rose.  Unfortunately, Maurice gets lost on the way home and accidentally wanders into a cursed castle.  He takes a rose from the grounds but is immediately captured by the Beast (Dan Stevens), who locks him in the tower.  Concerned, Belle retraces her father's journey and offers to trade places.  The Beast agrees mostly out of spite.  His loyal servants are elated, thinking that Belle could be the one to cause their master's hard heart to soften and break the curse that keeps them household objects.

The animation has certainly gotten better.  This movie is visually stunning.  And the costumes are gorgeous, so it's in a good place as far as its two nominations.  The cast is incredible, as befits a Disney movie.  Overall, it's a solid film but I have some minor issues.

Emma Watson is no Paige O'Hara but her singing is good enough, considering how much star power she brings.  Luke Evans is amazing as Gaston.  Of all the cast, he looks like he's having the most fun. Dan Stevens is under so much CGI, including changing his voice, he could have been anyone as the Beast but it's worth it for the few scenes he has as a real human.  However, I hated Ewan McGregor as Lumiére.  It just did not work for me.  I think it's his worst role since Jack the Giant Slayer.  Stanley Tucci would have been so much better, but instead he's wasted as the harpsichord, Cadenza.

I thought the attempts to be more diverse with the casting were admirable if heavy-handed.  I liked that the Beast finally got his own song, "Evermore," and I thought "Days in the Sun" was a better number than "Human Again," which was cut from the original animated film.  But Audra McDonald is a goddamn Broadway legend and she was criminally wasted here.

More pluses than minuses but as always your mileage may vary.