A wealthy merchant lives with three beautiful daughters. Two sisters are the selfish but the youngest daughter Belle owns a saintly soul. On the way home after a business trip, the father gets lost in a castle and picks a bright red rose there, so he is threatened by a monster - the owner of the castle, 'You is only left with the rose if then you shall return '. Knowing the story, because loving her father, Belle accepts to live the castle with the monster…
As gorgeous as the movie, it ultimately remains a highly detailed painting positioned behind velvet ropes, unable to connect beyond winning craftsmanship.
At times, Beauty and the Beast seems more like a demented Asian movie than a French one, to its merit. A quantifiably bad movie, but also certifiably grandiose.
This 2014 adaptation of the French fairy tale looks spectacular, with vibrant landscapes and lavish 18th-century costumes, but... [Léa Seydoux, as the fair maiden, and Vincent Cassell] are stiff and perfunctory.
Works better as cinematic spectacle than as compassionate romantic drama. Fortunately, their afterthought of a romance dampens but does not spoil the movie's cumulatively handsome spell.
It's a fun, beautiful drama that's a good way to while away two hours. But if Gans had been able to dial it back just a bit, he might have had something even better.
The film is most acceptable when it sticks to its beauty-and-beast dynamic. Even then it's too dizzying and grandiose and the chemistry between the lead characters is pretty much nil.
It has a breathtaking ornamentation, like a dazzlingly decorated storybook cover. But once opened, you realize the pages of romantic prose are few and far between.
Gans isn't especially concerned with the outcome this coupling, instead reveling in overwrought and often bloated storytelling, lush details and some of the year's most unnerving CGI.
