Beauty and the Beast

Image from IMDB

So, my motivation seems to have come back in a small dosage this evening. After such an eventful (ha ha) day watching The Walking Dead, I feel more in the mood to do something productive tonight.

Slight spoilers ahead (only if you don't want to know about the additional scenes should you not read on...)

It happened to be my 23rd birthday on Friday and my lovely boyfriend thought he'd treat me to a film I was ever so excited about pretty much since I heard about its remake (even more excited when I found out who the cast would be).

I could only be talking about Beauty and the Beast!

From the opening scene, it was glorious.

Emma Watson was truly the perfect Belle. She was bookish (although not as much as dear Hermione), she was beautiful and she was kind. She symbolised the outcasts and the weirdos that we probably all hide within us at some point. Luke Evans was a marvellous Gaston - as cheeky and arrogant as his animated counterpart with a dashing smile and twinkling eyes. I wasn't as set upon Dan Stevens as I could've been (both myself and Adeel thought the Beast didn't look quite right - although my opinion changed by the end of the film). He was a very good fit and portrayed the Beast's struggles wonderfully. The other mostly voice parts were fantastic also. Ewan McGregor and Ian McKellan stole the show for me. I loved the contrast between them both - McGregor as the upbeat, positive Lumiere (that French accent though ♥︎) and McKellan as the grumpy, very English Cogsworth.  Although I knew Emma Thompson was also a voice, she'd made it so different to her usual one that I missed that it was her until the very end! She was also perfect as Mrs Potts. Josh Gad also deserves a mention as the humourous yet clingy sidekick of Gaston (I couldn't help but only here Olaf though!)

Now that the cast have been analysed in great detail, I will move swiftly on to the plot. For the most part it stuck exactly to the same storyline as the Disney animation which was brilliant. The costumes and the sets were fantastic. Absolutely magical and very attentive to detail! The thing I want to talk about though, are the little additions they slotted in neatly that weren't in the original. For instance, the opening scene (my memory doesn't believe this scene was present in the animation although it might've been) took us on a brief but detailed overview of how the Prince became cursed. It was a great start and one that gripped our full attention straightaway. The other notable addition was a small scene where Beast takes Belle to a place she would most like to visit - her original home when she was a baby. This beautiful addition to Belle's backstory is enough to break your heart but to also feel more of a connection to her character and to understand her motivations.

And now, I can't not talk about the music can I? I believe all of the original songs were sung by the new cast as well as a few new additions. At least, I'm certain Beast got his own solo this time. I just wanted to bounce along to them all, they were so good!

One more thing as this is certainly turning into quite a long review (comes from reviewing so soon after watching it I expect!) When I returned home I couldn't help but do my usual search to scan through everything the cast has been in before when I came across a few articles slamming the new version for it's failure to produce anything new and criticising it for the portrayal of a few gay characters. Personally, I thought the idea of a remake was to - you know - just make it again as it was, but being a live action should have been enough to make it seem all new and exciting, no? And as for the critics commenting on the gay characters - it's a Disney film, it is meant to be lighthearted and humourous for those of us adult viewers. Those critics take it way too seriously for their own good.

Small rant aside, this film was PERFECT. If you're a Disney lover, Emma Watson lover, musical lover, or just anyone, GO AND WATCH THIS.

A magical film that I can't wait to rewatch ♥︎

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Rating:

★★★★★★★★★★

🥀

"If more of us valued home above gold, it would be a merrier world" - Thorin Oakenshield.

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies Review

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I have finally, FINALLY, seen the final part of the hobbit! Took me bloody long enough!! 
(If you still haven't seen it and don't want to know what happens, look away ;D)

Ohmygod, I don't know where to begin. I love how it started smack bang in the action, right after we left it in The Desolation of Smaug, and those scenes were stunning. I know dragons aren't real and it was all special effects but I loved it. In fact, I think they killed Smaug off a little too quickly. And I still don't understand how Benedict Cumberbatch came up with that voice for him!

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To be honest, I think the entire cast nailed their respective roles and I'm going to have to go into detail for a couple of them (probably will be more than a couple actually, whoops)!

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Can I just start with Alfrid (Ryan Gage)? I know he's not even a main character but I think if an actor can make you loathe a character as much as he does (in this and in The Musketeers as King Louis, can I add?), that he is a brilliant actor. I just can't believe how much I disliked him in this. Yes, he had his funny moments, but he was such a coward. I thought he may have had a change of heart towards the end, but I was wrong!

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And then there's Bard (Luke Evans), wow. He is just beautiful (and his slight welsh accent kind of does it for me). I loved how he was always looking out for his family. I particularly enjoyed the scene where he rolls down a hill in a breaking cart into an ogre/monster and stabs it right in the heart. Brilliant.

Okay, now onto the really important characters. Having read the book a good few years prior, I remember well that my three favourite dwarves get killed off. Thorin (Richard Armitage), Kili (Aidan Turner) and Fili (Dean O'Gorman) were phenomenal. I think Armitage played Thorin exceptionally well, especially when the dragon sickness was taking hold of him. He always seems to play bad guys well, but I loved seeing him in a character battling against himself as well as others. I have to admit, at the turning point in his character, when he returns to his normal self and goes out to fight with his company, the tears started - and they didn't stop until I left the cinema!

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Bilbo. Ah Bilbo. What an actor Martin Freeman is. I think (except for Ian Holm of course), Freeman is the perfect Bilbo. He's funny, gives good heart-warming speeches and is just plain cute, if I do say so myself. Some of his mannerisms throughout were adorable and I couldn't quite figure out whether they were a part of the character or the actor!

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The rest of the cast - Ian McKellan, Orlando Bloom, Cate Blanchett, Hugo Weaving, Christopher Lee, Lee Pace, Evangeline Lily, Stephen Fry, Elijah Wood, Andy Serkis to name a few! - were also amazing. This has to be one of my all time favourite casts, they are all so talented!

Right, now onto the content. 

Considering I didn't review the first two films, this may go a bit off track, but, I quite liked the added character of Tauriel and her little love sub-plot with Kili. I'd read reviews before going in and some weren't keen on it and I thought it might let it down a little. But my dad also had a theory that there would be some dramatic love/death scene involving the two of them (as we both knew Kili at least had to die), and he was right. For a while I did think she would get it too, but the scene with Thranduil broke my heart (he is gorgeous as well!). But, my god, I cried a lot at that bit.

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I also loved how they interweaved Legolas and Frodo's characters into the narrative and how they tied it all up at the end with Thranduil telling Legolas to go and seek Aragorn! And then Saruman saying he'd take care of the situation with Sauron, the cheeky devil. LOVED IT.

Ooh ooh! & I also got a little vibe between Gandalf and Galadriel(?!). This wasn't really highlighted in The Lord of the Rings, although I don't really remember their characters coming across each others paths, but still, was there a slight romance going on there??

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To be honest, for the majority of the film I had to pee and couldn't pick a good point to leave, so I didn't! And as soon as Dain appeared I was trying to work out who bloody voiced him for an age! And then I worked it out and was happy at seeing Billy Connolly's name in the credits (which were just as stunning as the final Lord of the Rings credits)! I'm surprised I managed to keep up with the film through all of that.

Overall, I loved the action-packed finale and bawled my eyes out like a little baby. I'm so sad that it's all over! Will just have to wait to get all three extended editions to add to my Lord of the Ring ones and then try to watch them all in one day - challenge accepted! ;D

I hope I didn't ramble too much; I get a little overexcited when it comes to Middle Earth, oops.

Hope you enjoyed the review anyway, would love to know what anyone else thought?

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:')