Video review: "Beauty and the Beast"

When “Beauty and the Beast” came out in March, I asked why a live-action remake of one of the best animated films of all time even needed to exist. Since then, the movie has provided its own reasons: 1.23 billion of them, to be exact. That’s the film’s global box office take in dollars as of this writing.

It’s a well-crafted film, bright and engaging and full of vivid characters. No doubt there is a new generation of moviegoers who experienced this timeless tale for the first time, since the 1991 animated version now falls into “classic film” category, as strange as it may seem.

I can only hope they experienced as much joy and thrills I had when I first saw Belle and the Beast dance together for the first time.

But I bet not.

Let’s start with the fact that Emma Watson has many wonderful qualities, but a singer she is not. Her frail little voice just can’t carry big Broadway-style show tunes (by lyricist Howard Ashman and composer Alan Menken). Her Belle doesn’t have that sense of hesitation we admired, existing more as a latter-day proto-feminist.

I also didn’t care for the look of the Beast (Dan Stevens), who can’t help looking like a dude in a fur suit. It seemed like the filmmakers were trying to turn him more into a classic romantic figure than a tragic, magically cursed prince.

The story is well-known: inquisitive young girl comes to be the prisoner of the Beast, who is trapped in his castle along with his entire staff of servants by a fell hex placed on him a decade earlier. If he doesn’t find someone to love him soon, the curse will remain forever.

Luke Evans plays the villain, martial hunter Gaston, who covets Belle for himself. Josh Bad is his right-hand henchman, LeFou, who does some pining of his own.

Rounding out the vocal cast are Emma Thompson, Ewan McGregor, Audra McDonald, Ian McKellen and Stanley Tucci. Kevin Kline plays Belle’s (live-action) father.

There are four brand-new songs in addition to all the originals from the animated movie, though only one, “Days in the Sun,” is memorable.

Billion-dollar payday or not, there’s just very little magic in seeing a virtual shot-by-shot remake of one of the most beloved films ever.

Bonus features are truly wondrous, though you’ll have to buy the Blu-ray version to get nearly all of them. The DVD contains only a music video.

There are about 10 minutes of deleted scenes, as well as an extended version of “Days in the Sun.” A sing-a-long version lets you jump straight to all the songs.

Perhaps the neatest feature is “Enchanted Table Read,” in which the cast carries out an elaborate table read of the film, including singing, dances and set pieces.

There is also a making-of documentary and several featurettes focusing on the people in front of and behind the cameras.

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Review: "Beauty and the Beast"

Time passes for us all, and for the movies. Since “Beauty and Beast” came out in 1991 and became regarded as one of the greatest animated films of all time, an entire generation has been born, grown up and started having babies of their own. Though it might make some of us feel old to say, it’s passing into cinematic antiquity.

I walked into the 2017 live-action remake with but a single word of question on my lips: “Why?” I left without grasping any kind of answer.

The new movie, starring Emma Watson and Dan Stevens, is almost a shot-by-shot remake of the animated film, with a few extra flourishes and minor changes. They reuse the Oscar-winning musical score by lyricist Howard Ashman and composer Alan Menken, with four new songs by Menken and Tim Rice that don’t measure up to the old stuff.

Most of the cast spends the movie in CGI form as enchanted clocks, teapots, harpsichords, wardrobes, candelabras, etc. Directed by Bill Condon (“Mr. Holmes”), it’s a beautiful, colorful film with energetic musical numbers, distinctive characters and an ageless love story.

And it has no reason for existing.

I’m not a purist on remakes and sequels. If you can make something that adds to the mythology of a film, or extends the characters and their individual arcs, then you’ll get no arguments from me. Disney has launched a number of live action remakes of its classic animated flicks, including “Cinderella” and “The Jungle Book,” and I’ve liked almost all of them.

But this one feels different… hollow, somehow. The tragic love story of the Beast (Stevens) and Belle (Watson) lacks the gut-churning emotional wrench of 1991. The best thing about the animated movie was its unexpected dramatic heft. That had the tone of “Romeo and Juliet.” This new one is the TV sitcom version.

It’s not helped by Watson’s singing voice, which is unequal to the task of carrying songs. That’s become a thing lately: casting non-singers as the leads in musicals. (See “Land, La La.”) Maybe it’s time to reconsider.

Stevens’ portrayal of the Beast using a mix of costume, makeup and CGI doesn’t exactly work, either. He looks like a smaller, softer, prettier version of the animated Beast. Even his leonine nose swoops down appealingly toward a modest snarl. I liked the cartoon Beast’s busted, crooked honker and every-which-way fangs. The new one looks like he got Jenny Craig and a plastic surgeon.

You know the story: village bookworm Belle stumbles into the castle of the Beast looking for her lost father, Maurice (Kevin Kline, changed from inventor to artist here). The master of the house and all his servants have been hexed with a terrible curse, which will become permanent if the magic rose loses its last petal before he finds true love. Belle agrees to become his prisoner in exchange for dad, and antagonism gives way to blooming romance.

The heavy is again Gaston (Luke Evans), the swaggering musclebound hunter/soldier who desires Belle for himself. Josh Gad, as the flunkie LeFou, adds notes of jaded longing for his longtime companion. Some people are upset about having a (more or less) openly homosexual character in a Disney movie, but I was more perturbed he falls into the weary cliché of gay man pining for an unavailable straight.

Ewan McGregor takes over the Lumiere role of rapscallion candelabra; Emma Thompson is Mrs. Potts, and does a reasonably good job warbling the title song; Ian McKellen is unctuous butler Cogsworth; Audra McDonald is the operatic wardrobe; Stanley Tucci is a new character as the wardrobe’s musical and marital accompanist.

Originally they were going to weave some of the songs from the stage musical version into the movie, but instead went with four new ones. Two are just short trifles, while the Beast’s “Evermore” is a bland Broadway hollerer. Though “Days in the Sun,” sung by Watson with help from the supporting characters, more adequately explores the dilemma of the servants caught up in their master’s curse.

I think the lesson is if you’re going to remake a beloved classic, you need to let it evolve. Take some risks, change it around and see how audiences react. They may not like it as much. But there’s no magic in mere repetition.

Video review: "Ricki and the Flash"

If there’s nothing more exhilarating in a movie theater than finding a wonderful film where you didn’t expect, then little is more depressing than walking out let down by a movie you had awaited with enthusiasm. Such was the case for me and “Ricki and the Flash.”

I think Meryl Streep is the finest actor working in film today, and operate under the general assumption that having her in the cast makes anything worth the price of admission. And while “Ricki” certainly isn’t a bad flick, it’s got too many obvious problems in its structure and execution to ever had a chance at being good.

Streep plays a woman who ran out on her family decades ago to pursue her rock ‘n’ roll dreams on the West Coast. She never made it big, but continues to entertain at night while working days as a checkout clerk. Then Ricki gets the call that her daughter, Julie (Mamie Gummer, Streep’s real-life kid), is in a bad way after a terrible breakup.

You can’t go home again, at least not without stirring up old heartbreak, as Ricki discovers in a by-the-numbers trip through resentment and buried longing. The screenplay by Diablo Cody takes a “kitchen sink” approach, lobbing in all sorts of distracting sub-characters and side plots.

The main dynamic between mother and daughter gets lost, and Julie actually disappears for most of the second half. Kevin Kline is poorly used as Ricki’s ex-husband, a diffident but decent fellow who’s moved on from a shattered love life but still feels some warmth toward her.

Throw in the gay son’s coming out, the other son’s wedding, Ricki’s scratchy romance with her lead guitarist (Rick Springfield) and a face-off with her children’s stepmother, and there’s just too many notes in this cacophonous arrangement. And director Jonathan Demme can’t find a consistent tone amidst the chaos.

Streep’s great as always, but “Ricki and the Flash” gets the primary chords wrong.

Video extras are middling. The DVD comes with a making-through documentary, and that’s it. The Blu-ray adds deleted scenes, a photo gallery and a featurette on Springfield’s reemergence as a rock icon and actor.

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Review: "Ricki and the Flash"

I could've done with less singing.

That may be seem a strange criticism for a movie about a rock star. (Well, a rock musician, anyway.) But that was my main takeaway from "Ricki and the Flash": it spends way too much time with Meryl Streep and her eponymous band doing covers of (mostly) classic rock songs.

We all know how it goes with musical montages: the band will start playing, the scene will build energy as the song rises, the high point is the chorus, and then movie cuts away to a series of images that let us know they kept playing, but they're not going to show all of it. Director Jonathan Demme and screenwriter Diablo Cody don't do this: we hear the whole song from beginning to end, just about every time.

The would be fine if the five, six minutes or whatever of song propelled the plot and advanced the characters. Or if it was just good to listen to. But the complete tunes seem more like an excuse to let Streep stroke her ego and play rock god. And, frankly, Ricki and the Flash sound like what they are: a third-string cover band. We know Streep can sing pop ballads and folk music from other movies, but here she's trying to do that husky-voiced rock voice, and it's just not her bag.

They're going for Bonnie Raitt, but it sounds like Meryl Streep after gargling Wild Turkey and thumb tacks.

Ricki bailed on her Indianapolis family a quarter-century ago or so to pursue her rock 'n' roll dreams in Los Angeles. She never made it but never left, spending days as a cashier at Total Foods while working the Salt Well bar as the house band for the aging clientele who want a little shake with their suds.

Then Ricki gets a call from her former husband, Pete (an ill-used Kevin Kline): their daughter Julie has just been dumped by her husband and is in an emotional spin. Pete's second wife, Maureen, is off dealing with her own family problems. Can Ricki (real name: Linda) come back and be a mother to her kids again?

Things play out much as you'd expect. The children -- they also have two sons -- are stupendously resentful of the parent who walked out on them so long ago. There's a lot of screaming and recrimination at first. But slowly, Ricki starts to ease her way back into their lives.

As usual, Streep is the best thing about whatever movie she's in. Her Ricki is frayed and strained, riddled with guilt but also justifiably proud of the fact that rolled the dice on her dreams. She sports a weird braided hairdo, omnipresent necklaces and makeup that looks like it was applied with a bricklayer's trowel. Everywhere she goes, people stop and stare.

Julie is played by Streep's real-life daughter, Mamie Gummer, and it's no small thing for a movie to feature people playing relatives who actually resemble each other. Their early scenes together crackle with energy. Julie has become despondent and suicidal, with a convincing rat's nest hairdo and lips curling with ready insults for her wayward mom.

Cody, who took Hollywood by storm with her script for "Juno" and then has been unable to follow up with anything approaching it, goes for the kitchen sink approach to story construction. Just Ricki coming home, healing the rift with her daughter and negotiating a dance around old resentments with her ex is enough. But then Cody throws in other entanglements: her son's pending marriage; her other son's coming out; her bandmate and bedmate (a soulful Rick Springfield) desiring something more concrete; the stepmom (Audra McDonald) returning just in time to lay down the law and ruin the party.

Characters and subplots dance in and out of the foreground, some staying too long and others exiting the stage too soon. The emotionally resonant reunion between mother and daughter gets sort of... misplaced. Julie literally disappears for most of the second half. Wasn't she the entire reason for Ricki's homecoming?

I admit I had been eagerly looking forward to this movie, and came away disappointed. It's not a bad flick by any stretch, and I'm of the opinion that anything with Streep is worth the price of admission. Ricki comes into clear focus, but everything around her stays fuzzy.