Film & TV

French Film Festival Review: Beauty and the Beast

As a modern retelling of a classic fairy tale, Christopher Gans’ multi-million dollar fantasy blockbuster is a film that is almost sickeningly beautiful.

 

FFF-beauty-and-the-beastAs a modern retelling of a classic fairy tale, one would expect that there would be a lot more “beast” to Christopher Gans’ multi-million dollar fantasy blockbuster, Beauty and the Beast, but what we get instead is a film that is almost sickeningly beautiful.

This is a film of vibrant, visual muscle flexing and little else. True, the imaginative additions to the timeless classic do make the almost two-hour-long movie mildly more interesting than the original text, but it’s something we’ve all seen before.

Léa Seydoux plays Belle, a beautiful girl who, to make amends for her father’s theft of a magical rose, travels to the castle of The Beast (Vincent Cassel). There, the two fall in love (obviously) and defend themselves against marauding baddies (of course). It’s a well-known and well-worn tale that is only livened up by the addition of a fleshed-out backstory to The Beast’s transformation.

Seydoux is undeniably a true beauty, but her character lacks substance. She seems nothing more than a pretty victim for the true star of the show, The Beast. It’s a real shame, as a modern re-telling would be the perfect opportunity to give Belle more of a voice. That’s not to say Seydoux doesn’t show off her talent at points, just that the role is too limiting for her.

Vincent Cassel’s Beast is truly magnificent, however. His ferocious yet pride-filled demeanour is captivating. The make-up and CGI teams did a fantastic job on his transformation as well. Nothing else in the movie quite matches the quality of The Beast’s costume, which I suppose is justified for a central character. I would love to see the design documents behind this costume to see just how they managed to make the animal look so human.

As I’ve already touched upon, this is really a visual feast more than anything. The real-world settings, costumes and props are all intricate, realistic and down-right beautiful, while the CGI backdrops to places like the castle are truly magical. However, as with (almost) all computer generated images, the closer you look the more you see that everything looks a bit false. This is especially true in the appearance of the mutated hunting dogs, which just seem like they belong more in Men in Black or Gremlins.

Those little critters bring up another little gripe I had with Beauty and the Beast. It definitely tried too hard to fit in with the whole “Minions” craze. Not every film needs a cutesy, bumbling character (think Olaf in Frozen). These characters definitely just come off as obnoxious if employed too often. I’m sure some, especially kids or the not-so-cynical, will get a kick out of them however.

Overall, Beauty and the Beast is gorgeous, yet slightly hollow film. Definitely one to see on the big screen; but one to take home and watch over and over again? I’m not so sure.

Beauty and the Beast screens on 8 and 12 March 2015 as part of the Alliance Française Film Festival.

Reviewed by James Rudd
Twitter: @james_wrr

Rating out of 10:  6

The Alliance Française Film Festival runs from 5 – 24 March 2015 exclusively at the Palace Nova Eastend Cinemas.

 

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