A movie review: Beauty and the Beast (2017)

My kids are getting to be quite the movie buffs, and one movie they recommended we see is the recent version of Beauty and the Beast.  Now of course, the most important question for a fundamental Baptist like myself is how horrific the supposed "gay" scene was, and quite frankly it's a total nothingburger, an accident at the ball akin to a poorly done Jerry Lewis skit.


Overall, the impression made was that the movie meant well, but was trying too hard. It transforms the gracious merchantman's daughter of Barbot to an early example of a gender feminist (and a prickly one at that), presents the makeup choices of people in her town as caricatures I cannot find in art from the 17th through the 19th centuries, establishes a pace where all but the ADHD cannot keep up with the plot, and finally abuses the French language with a cadence reminiscent of a doodlebug trolley on improperly laid rails. 


In doing so, it wastes wonderful costumes, sets, special effects, and of course the original story.   I give it 3/5 stars, and I've frankly got to wonder if I'm going to see a lot more of "trying too hard" in moviemaking.  I hope not.