A classic re-imagined, Beauty and the Beast opened last weekend to box office success.

If you loved the animated version, then you will feel a sense of deja-vu but it will be a enjoyable blast from the past. Before writing this off as another reboot of a classic, it could be argued this is the way things should be rebooted.The animated version and the most recent release of the ‘tale as old as time’ are very similar in a lot of ways.

The similarities don’t end with the plot; Belle (Emma Watson) is a smart girl in a town where being smart and a women gets you nowhere. Her mother has passed away and she lives with her father, Maurice (Kevin Kline) until he goes out of town and his horse comes back alone.

Belle finds her father with the help of their family horse in a seemingly abandoned castle in the woods. Inside she finds her father but also a terrible beast with no name other than The Beast (Dan Stevens). The Beast must take a prisoner for her father’s trespassing so Belle takes the punishment as tribute and is held captive while her father flees.

Belle finds that there are objects in the castle that move and talk. They inform her that the Beast was once a human prince and they were all humans as well until a witch cursed them for the selfish acts of the prince and the only way to reverse it is for someone to fall in love with The Beast and vise versa.

Naturally, they will do everything in their power to get Belle and the Beast together. There is also the man Gaston (Luke Evans), a war hero who has eyes for Belle and will stop at nothing to have her, even murder.

There are only a few differences from the original; there is some more backstory at the beginning of the movie clearing up some confusion about the first one, there are a few more songs here and there and one song in particular “Evermore” got a lot of flack because people thought it was unnecessary (however, I really liked it and Stevens does a suburb job singing it so, take that naysayers). There was also an underlying suggestion that LeFou (Josh Gad) was gay, which wasn’t heavily implied in the original and it is a pretty strong suggestion considering how he interacts with Gaston. 

The most noticeable difference is the new one is a little darker and grittier than the cutesy animated counterpart on the account of the themes of death and actually seeing a beast-like man is scarier than seeing it drawn on a screen (keep in mind this is meant for people who would have watched the original as kids and while it is scarier, any child that is above toddler age should be okay watching the movie).

The jump from animation to live action is a stunning sight to say the least. The CGI for the beast and minor characters was very well done and with an A-list cast, it was very enjoyable to watch.

However, there is a word that comes to mind while watching this movie: uninspired.

While it is nice to see a remake that is very true to it’s roots and didn’t take its own license with a lot of it, I and a few others that saw it with me found ourselves thinking “I liked it but I could have just watched the original and would have still been equally satisfied.”

Sadly to say, Emma Watson did a great job bringing the character to life but that’s all she did really; she didn’t give me a new perspective. The other actors actually did a better job of it and since Watson is the lead, she gets extra points taken off.

Any brunette decent actor with a good voice could have played her and gave the exact same feeling. It’s just like, “what’s the point of this” at some parts.

Keeping all this in mind I would have to give Beauty and the Beast (2017) 4/5  stars and  a rating of 7/10, a nice safe movie that was made but the lack of risks cause the impression to be all too familiar.