This seems to be the most-seen of the new thing where Disney is remaking their cartoon movies into live action (for certain values of "live action" ), in that I've actually met multiple people who've seen it and there seems to be more buzz about it. But it's also kind of pointless. "The Jungle Book" improved on a beloved film, with probably the best source material of any Disney cartoon, but which was made on the cheap, in a kind of Dark Age of the Disney animation game. There were blatant flaw, which the remake made efforts to rectify. I didn't see "Cinderella," but this being two decades into the 21st century, they probably taught her karate or something to make her more acceptable to current fashions. "Maleficent" was a reimagining of the original from the point of view of one of the most popular villains. This is just doing the same thing over again. I don't like accusing creators of simple mercenary motivations because there is A. nothing wrong with that, and B. begs too many questions. But "Beauty and the Beast" was nominated for an Oscar, back when only a handful of films got that far. It was considered a peer of "Silence of the Lambs". There is nothing to really fix, and they didn't make any noteworthy creative changes, so this is plainly a cash grab that was a slam-dunk for Disney.

Nostalgia goggles are the only reason to see this, and you pretty much need to be predisposed to forgive a lot of stuff due to your affection for the cartoon. Visually, it is a colossal disappointment, as it looks like it was done entirely on soundstages. The forest and the Beast's castle grounds especially look like a stage production of musical, rather than what they are supposed to be. I am pretty sure that the people responsible for this have more of a musical theater background or sympathies than cinematic, as there are a number of little details that seem more suggestive of the former than the latter, like the excessive dance scenes and over-the-top makeup and costumes and having Belle & the Beast visibly singing "There's Something There" instead of it being a voice-over.

Anyway, the music is a big comedown. There are a few forgettable new songs, and some of the familiar ones are rendered incomprehenisble by whatever the difference is between cartoon singing and live action singing (I honestly thought they recorded songs both types of movie separate from the filming). You just cannot hear what they are saying, even when you know all the words already. The casting was also not great. IDK enough about music to know if Emma Watson or Josh Gad are competent singers, but I didn't think they were as good as their cartoon predecessors, and Watson's acting was definitely not up to matching the performance of an animated character. Where the cartoon had Belle reacting with wide-eyed delight, Watson seems to be smirking, which is particularly grating in the character's already bordering-on-obnoxious condescending opening monologue, and its climatic scene with her on a hill top reminiscent of the sound of music suffers from Watson's restraint, as she stands there like a lump clutching her skirt, as if she's in a voice audition, rather than conveying any kind of sense of the scope or breadth of her dreams and ambitions.

The CGI characters are pretty bad too. The Beast no longer looks like a beast. He looks like a guy with horns who could stand to shave, and since it was probably CGI rather than makeup and costuming, IDK why they could not have animated him an animal's face. After the idiocy of the CW tv series version of the story, where everyone laughed at the debut of a "beast" who just had a scar and was otherwise a typical CW prettyboy, and then forgot about the whole show, you'd think they'd have the sense to go "more is more" when it came to beastifying him. The main animate household objects are no better. With scanty enough characterization among the three main ones, they chose to also shoehorn in more stuff for the wardrobe, the feather duster and the piano as well. Mrs. Potts sounds more shrill and harsh than Angela Lansbury, who could still make a servant's British accent sound sweet and refined. This one sounds pushy. Also, the cast is all British for absolutely no reason I can think of. Angela Lansbury was British, other than that, the original film was all Americans, who did MUCH better foreign accents. Lumiere was clearly not French, as he kept pronouncing the same sounds differently in his effort to do an accent, and his delivery of the big, energetic musical number came across as flat and mechanical, rather than exhuberant and hopeful. In the cartoon, Lumiere was excited to have Belle there and desperately trying to sell her on her new home, to make her more receptive to breaking the curse. In this one, he seems to be trying to put on a show and not mess up the song, which is probably what the actor was actually doing, but it loses some of the excitement (which seems to be a general thing with all the music, in addition to drowning out the lead singer's words).

Also, the effects for Lumiere, Cogsworth and Mrs. Potts are very much inferior. You can barely tell they have faces, and their expression lack animation, ironically.

Another annoyance which isn't so much on its own as the context of other things, is the diversity pandering. There are a LOT of black people in the film, which is fine, except they made so much more of an effort to place it in 18th century France. Right down to some really unappealing costumes and makeup. It's one thing to defend Belle's wierd dress that looks like she got careless tucking things in after going to the bathroom by saying "that's how French working class women wore their skirts, for practicality and such" but then, would the priest of a small isolated rural village be black? If you are going to appeal to modern sensibilities with a racially diverse cast, then why not go all the way and give us costumes and makeup that don't look so absurd and off-putting? The opening dance number might have featured costumes like what real French aristocrats work in the 1700s, but was way too reminiscent of a scene in "A Cure for Wellness" which is not an association anyone wants made with a Disney cartoon movie.

Then there are the villains, Gaston & Lefou. While much was made of the latter's sexuality (presumably by the producers to generate publicity), it is a non-issue in the movie, except for one bit of stupidity, where he expresses doubts about Gaston's actions, which are made more explicitly hostile in this version, and switches teams during the final battle. Because a gay character can't be a bad guy. One more time, the ONLY appeal for this movie is appreciation of the original property. Where Lefou was sadistically delighting in melting Lumiere. If you don't like gay people being shown as villains, then just excise all the stuff that allowed people to make jokes about Lefou having a crush on Gaston, don't change him from a sycophant who internalizes his idol's hostilities to others, to a sackless wimp who lets his cojones lead him into criminal complicity before bailing out when it comes to actual fighting. As for Gaston, if you are going to make so many changes to original music, maybe you should also remove the line "as a speciman, yes, I'm intimidating" if it is to be sung by a physically unimpressive man reclining in a frilly shirt (see above, re: costuming).

Finally, we have the main characters, Belle & the Beast. Setting aside the issues with their acting, singing, costumes and appearance, we have the story. There are added details to show how & why they fell in love, but the deliberate effort only highlights how little even the expanded version of their romance gives you to go on. It's still abrupt and sketchy, but by trying to lampshade that, they made it more obvious. Now, they are BOTH bookworms, which actually, should be enough. "Lets me read in peace" is a HUGE quality that would vastly improve all sorts of relationships beyond the romantic, and is way too deficient in the entire species, but that isn't enough. They have to insert a teleporting book so Belle can learn about her mother (spoiler: she got sick and died), which is going to add way more questions for the nitpickers than this film comes close to patching over in the original, and doesn't change or reveal anything significant about the characters or their relationships. In fact, it kind of degrades the relationship a bit, adding yet another material benefit for Belle to be with him. Magical exposition should help her get to know HIM better, not provide her with the means to indulge her self-absorption. Both make a romance more plausible, but the former makes her love more admirable, the latter, more profitable.

All in all, this remake adds absolutely nothing. There were good parts to the movie, and sitting through it was not a torturous experience (I brought a book), and those good parts might have even outweighed the bad. But absolutely none of those good things were new or original. You can get them all in a 25 year old cartoon, without having to put up with any of the crap I just listed above.