Filmmakers took the 1991 animated film Disney’s Beauty and the Beast and added a new dimension. Disney released new film of the same name, Beauty and the Beast, a live action, romance, fantasy, on March 17, 2017.

The film features Emma Watson as Belle and Dan Stevens as the Beast, featuring Luke Evans, Kevin Kline, Josh Gad, Ewan McGregor, Stanley Tucci, Audra McDonald, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Ian McKellen, and Emma Thompson as supporting roles.
From the humble origins of Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont’s eighteenth-century fairy tale to an animated movie and now a full flesh and blood film, Beauty and the Beast has now reached new heights in storytelling.

While the film is true to the original animation, it added much more to the story. Characters had more depth, and screenwriters added to the lore. They had more personality, such as Lefou’s character development thus making audiences care for the characters. The film expanded upon ideas that the animation did not; the effects of the curse and its relation to the rest of the world. These differences from the animation cause the audience to look closer at the film and enjoy it more.
Sadly, however, if one kept comparing the original to the new film, one would be disappointed. Each medium serves its purpose but they cannot be compared. The new film had a more serious tone then the animation while the animation had a light and cheerful tone.. The animation could afford to be bright and colorful while the film had limitations with real life colors.
The CGI was decent in the movie. While the CGI did its best to suspend the audience’s disbelief it sometimes could not. The animation could get by with the weird stunts of the magical objects, but it could not as much within the within the live action film. The common house items in the iconic Be Our Guest scene, while visually appealing, destroyed the suspension of disbelief because the film medium has a more seriousness to it. This leads to more of a cartoonish feel.

The music was fantastic. The original tracks were there and some new songs were added as well. The character’s voices were unique and brought smiles to the audiences who remembered watching the original.

Beauty and the Beast have gotten decent reviews. IMDb has given it a 7.8/10. Rotten Tomatoes critics have given it 71/100 while the audience gave it a 85/100.