Beauty and the Best: review

Director: Bill Condon
Running time: 129 minutes


Beauty and the Beast is a remake of the 1991 Disney classic, which is still the studio's only animated feature to ever be nominated for a best picture at the Academy awards. It follows a recent trend in Disney remaking their classics into live action features, so is this recent endeavour a cynical money grabber or a worthy re-imagining of a masterpiece?

The story is about a vain Prince who refuses an old beggar seeking shelter, who in her revenge turns him into a beast, and then gives him a rose. If he does not find love before the last petal falls, he will live out his days as the beast. When Belle's (Emma Watson) father, Maurice stumbles upon the the Castle while travelling to a market, he is taken prisoner, so Belle makes her way to the castle and she takes his place.

On its own merits, this version of the fairy tale is good if rather forgettable, it misses certain nuances that worked so well in the animated original, such as the facial expressions of the beast, which gave the character a little depth and a number of comedic moments.

The film is uneven in its presentation, the village looks stagy and fake, this might have been intentional but at certain points it took me out of the movie. The castle is also a mixed bag, the outside design is gothic and intimidating in an intriguing way, but from my recollection there's never a moment where it's shot in a foreboding way, its scale is never really explored in the same way for example, Hogwarts was in the Harry Potter movies. The inside of the castle has better scope to it but its visually drab, which is the most surprising thing about the whole movie, aside from one particular music score nothing of the visuals ever stood out.

The musical numbers are fine, some stretch for a bit too long and some of the cast have noticeably better singing talent than others, but they are all typical Disney which is a good thing.

Of all the casting it's Luke Evans that stands out, his take as Gaston never strays too far into exaggeration, and you can see that he's put everything into his performance so that the character is unlikable, but we still find sympathy to his cause. It's only towards the end of the film that he really turns into a vicious villain. His rapport with LeFou (Josh Gad) is a joy, and a slight change in contrast to the original where LeFou was literally a goof and a tag along. Emma Watson is passable as Belle, Kevin Kline's portrayal of Maurice has been changed for the better, he is far less wacky in this interpretation.

The supporting characters of Cogsworth and Lemiere (the candle and the clock) provide the comic relief in the film, they play off each other with great chemistry, but it's in their design that they lose the charm and the expression of the original.

There are differences with the original, we get a backstory to Belle's mother, but aside from that all of them are slender and leave with little impression or difference. Maybe it's the quality of the original that doesn't allow this to divert in any serious manner, which begs the question of whether it was worth it in the first place. Now don't get me wrong, this is a fine movie, but it just lacks the courage of its own conviction, so it just ends up being a mere imitation. Overall, I would recommend going to see this film, especially for a family trip.

Verdict-7.5
C    

Kong: Skull Island review

Director: Jordan Vogt-Roberts
Certificate: 12A
Running time: 118 minutes

Big, dumb...fun?

Kong: Skull Island is the second entry in the planned MonsterVerse, which will eventually bring the giant ape up against Godzilla for an intended release date of 2020, only a year after the release of Godzilla 2. 

For all intents and purposes the story is copying from tropes we have already seen before, set in 1973 just as the Vietnam War has finished. A government sends out a geological expedition to a mysterious, uncharted Island, simply known as 'Skull Island', to help them is British Secret Air Service captain James Conrad (Tom Hiddleston), as well as a discharged army unit from the Vietnam War, which is led by Preston Packard (Samuel Jackson). Also coming along for the ride is Mason Weaver (Brie Larson), a photojournalist.

It isn't long before the expedition goes awry, and the special effects extravaganza and action set-pieces begin to string the film together. Much of it is entertaining at the very least, you can really see where the money went, but so much of it is also unsurprising and falls a bit flat. There is little build up to the appearance of Kong, and although the action is fun there is no tension or subtlety to anything. Despite its flaws, the most recent Hollywood version of Godzilla had tension and plenty of human stakes involved. So much of Skull Island just looks like computer generated characters hitting one another, or humans running away from them.

This isn't helped when none of the characters are particularly interesting or developed in any way whatsoever, no one here has much agency, everyone is just reacting to their surroundings. Brie Larson and Tom Hiddleston have little to do, Samuel Jackson is okay as the manic Colonel who wants to avenge his fallen comrades, but that's all there is to his character. John C Reilly shows up as a castaway on the island, having crashed from air combat in the second world war, but his comic relief character feels a little out of place.

The visual effects and locations are illuminating and really capture the eye, 'Skull Island' feels like a place that is of another world, it's helped by a great use of wide shots to bring everything into focus. You can also tell that they have shot on real locations, and the variety of different creatures is impressive, much like Kong, they all have a scale and wonderment to them.

But it's a double edge sword, there are unfortunately one or two moments when the CGI isn't particularly convincing, and it is painfully obvious that the actors are just standing in front of a green screen.

When all said and done, Skull Island is a decent, popcorn flick that is worth your time on a late night out to the cinema. It's an unashamedly B-movie with monsters, but it could have been so much more. But it does leave me excited for where they go next.

Verdict: 3/5