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Twenty- three years ago, the Broadway version of “Beauty and the Beast” (followed three years later by the Broadway version of “The Lion King”) introduced a different form of re- branding: the stage- musical- based- on- an- animated- feature. Now the studio is introducing a cinematic cousin to that form with the deluxe new movie version of “Beauty and the Beast,” a $1.

March 3, 2017

This list shows all films released in 2017, including films that went direct-to-video, or only got an international theatrical release. For each film, we use the. Directed by Todd Haynes. With Oakes Fegley, Julianne Moore, Michelle Williams, Millicent Simmonds. The story of a young boy in the Midwest is told simultaneously with. The Tomatometer rating – based on the published opinions of hundreds of film and television critics – is a trusted measurement of movie and TV. AwardsCircuit.com - By Clayton Davis - Home for Academy Awards, Oscars, and all other award show predictions.

Disney animated classic. It’s a lovingly crafted movie, and in many ways a good one, but before that it’s an enraptured piece of old- is- new nostalgia. There’s a lot riding on “Beauty and the Beast.” Given its sheer novelty value (the live- action “Cinderella” released by Disney in 2. But the larger question hanging over it is: How major — how paradigm- shifting — can this new form be? Is it a fad or a revolution?

Disney already has a live- action “Lion King” in the works, but it remains to be seen whether transforming animated features into dramas with sets and actors can be an inspired, or essential, format for the future. Going into “Beauty and the Beast,” the sheer curiosity factor exerts a uniquely intense lure.

Is the movie as transporting and witty a romantic fantasy as the animated original? Does it fall crucially short? Or is it in some ways better? Download Full Deadpool (2016). The answer, at different points in the film, is yes to all three, but the bottom line is this: The new “Beauty and the Beast” is a touching, eminently watchable, at times slightly awkward experience that justifies its existence yet never totally convinces you it’s a movie the world was waiting for.

A good animated fairy tale is, of course, more than just a movie — it’s a whole universe. The form was invented by Disney eighty years ago, with “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” (1. I still think has never been surpassed, and when you watch something as transporting as “Snow White” — or “Bambi,” or “Toy Story,” or “Beauty and the Beast” — every gesture and background and choreographed flourish, from the facial expressions to the drip- drop of water, flows together with a poetic unity. That’s the catchy miracle of great animation.

When you watch the new “Beauty and the Beast,” you’re in a prosaic universe of dark and stormy sets, one that looks a lot like other (stagy) films you’ve seen. The visual design, especially in the Beast’s majestic curlicued castle, is gentrified gothic — Tim Burton de- quirked. At the beginning, when Belle (Emma Watson) walks out of her house and wanders through the village singing “Belle,” that lovely lyrical meet- the- day ode that mingles optimism with a yearning for something more, the shots and beats are all in place, the spirit is there, you can see within 1. Emma Watson has the perfect perky soulfulness to bring your dream of Belle to life — and still, the number feels like something out of one of those overly bustling big- screen musicals from the late ’6. It’s not that the director, Bill Condon (“Dreamgirls,” “The Twilight Saga”), does anything too clunky or square.

It’s that the material loses its slapstick spryness when it’s not animated. The sequence isn’t bad, it’s just. Belle, a wistful bookworm, is the odd girl out in her village, and she has already brushed off several encounters with Gaston (Luke Evans), the duplicitous hunk who became a new Disney archetype (in “Frozen,” etc.): the handsome, big- chinned, icky monomaniacal two- faced suitor. On first meeting, however, the Beast seems nearly as dark.

He’s a prince who was cursed and turned into a monster for having no love in him, and the best thing about the movie — as well as its biggest divergence from the animated version — is that he’s a strikingly downbeat character, a petulant and morose romantic trapped in a body that makes him feel nothing less than doomed. He’s played by Dan Stevens, a British actor who out of makeup looks like a bland version of Ryan Gosling, but the makeup and effects artists have done an extraordinary job of transforming him into a hairy hulking figure with ram horns, the face of a saddened lion having an existential meltdown, and the voice of Darth Vader channeling Hugh Grant. Visually, the characterization makes a nod to the scowling- eyed Beast from Jean Cocteau’s immortal “Beauty and the Beast” (1. Elephant Man: a melancholy freak trapped in solitude. I loved that for a good long while, he’s a bit of a hard- ass, a man- creature who doesn’t dare to think that Belle could love him. But then, under her gaze, he begins to soften, and his transformation is touching in a more adult way than it was in the animated version.

The romance there was benign; here, it’s alive with forlorn longing. Which is to say, the new “Beauty and the Beast” is not as kid- friendly a movie.

It tries to be in certain sequences, notably those featuring Lumi. The “Be Our Guest” musical number scrupulously revives the dancing- plate surreal exuberance of the original, but there the frenetic nuttiness was exquisite. Here it tips between exhilarating and exhausting, because you can feel the special- effects heavy lifting that went into it. I keep comparing “Beauty and the Beast” to the animated version, which raises a question: Is that what we’re supposed to be doing? Or should the film simply stand on its own? The movie wants to have it both ways, but then, that’s the contradictory metaphysic of reboot culture: We’re drawn in to see the old thing.

The live- action “Beauty and the Beast” is different enough, and certainly, if you’ve never experienced the cartoon, it’s strong enough to stand on its own. The larger fantasy promoted by a movie like this one is that we’ll somehow see an animated feature “come to life.” And that may be a dream of re- branding — shared by studio and audience alike — that carries an element of creative folly. Animation, at its greatest, is already a glorious imitation of life. It’s not clear that audiences need an imitation of the imitation. Reviewed at Lincoln Square, New York, March 2, 2. MPAA Rating: PG. Running time: 1.

MIN. Production. A Walt Disney Studios release of a Walt Disney Pictures, Mandeville Films production. Producers: David Hoberman, Todd Liebmerman.

Executive producers: Don Hahn, Tomas Schumacher, Jeffrey Silver. Crew. Director: Bill Condon. Screenplay: Stephen Chbosky, Evan Spiliotopoulos. Camera (color, widescreen): Tobias A. Schliessler. Editor: Virginia Katz. With. Emma Watson, Dan Stevens, Luke Evans, Kevin Kline, Josh Gad, Ewan Mc.

Gregor, Gugu Mbatha- Raw, Audra Mc. Donald, Ian Mc. Kellen, Emma Thompson, Stanley Tucci.