First Impression: Beauty & The Beast (2017)

First Impression: Beauty & The Beast (2017)

The live action Beauty & The Beast has been a topic of constant conversation since the teaser trailer was released 9 months ago. The excitement has been building and building with every little glimpse of the movie that I got with the official movie trailers since then. I was nervous and excited to see the film as Beauty & The Beast is a Disney classic (the 1991 release is one of my favourite titles from Disney) and I hoped the live action instalment wouldn’t tarnish my opinion of the film, as animations don’t always have a smooth translation to live action. However, Disney surpassed every expectation I had for this film. I can safely say that the 2017 instalment of Beauty & The Beast is now one of my favourite Disney films of all time.

The actors were able to portray the characters effortlessly and brought their own unique twists to the characters. Josh Gad played the role of Le Fou and I thought he was hilarious throughout the whole movie. There were times throughout the film where he was serious but I felt it was never out of place with the personality that Le Fou was known for in the 1991 film. Emma Waston was the perfect actress to play Belle. She played the role confidently and successfully and delivered a stellar performance, she never faltered. Dan Stevens took on the role of the Beast which must have been easy as he spent most his filming days in a grey onesie and stilts to make the CGI effects easier in editing. Nevertheless, his performance was amazing and he brought a new side to the Beast that wasn’t previously seen in the 1991 title. The only critique I have about a member of the cast is Emma Thompson’s attempt at playing Mrs. Potts. I feel like she was trying too hard to match Angela Lansbury’s voice acting in the iconic role as Emma’s accent came across as a bit too Cockney for Mrs. Potts. As she is an English actress I think she could have been a bit more natural when it came to the voice acting for the film.

The script writers were amazing when writing the new script for Beauty & The Beast as they kept the key elements of the original film that made us fall in love with it but changed it enough that it gave us a new insight to the characters and their backstories. They changed certain elements of the enchantress’s curse to benefit the plot of the story, which didn’t impact the overall plot of the film significantly for better or for worse. 

The score was better than ever! The original team reprised their roles for this adaptation and I’m grateful they did. Their work flowed seamlessly from the 1991 film and added in extra verses into all the beloved songs we fell in love with 26 years ago. There were also some unexpected surprises when it came to the score of the film but writing it here would include some serious spoilers so you’ll have to wait till you see the film to figure it out. The only thing I found annoying with the songs was that, in most of the numbers, there was a drawn out pause for some CGI effect or useless choreography. The musical numbers don’t need a pause multiple times during the songs and I don’t honestly know why they would feel the need to include them.

Overall the movie is spectacular. There are very few ways to describe the magnificence of the film in a review. I highly recommend it to anyone who is reading this and if the 3D option is available in your local cinema take advantage of it! It's family friendly and a great excuse to see it if you have kids.
Disney managed to take a beloved classic from 1991 and re-invented it in a subtle but powerful way, securing it a place within our hearts for another 26 years at least.

First Impression Rating: 5/5

First Impression: Logan

First Impression: Logan

I try not to give spoilers for first impression films, as I don’t want to ruin any surprises or plot twists that might occur in the film. For this movie review it will be harder as I disliked the film so explaining why may prove to be difficult.

Before seeing Logan, I hadn’t seen any promotion for the movie whatsoever. No movie posters, no film trailers. Nothing. I was a bit apprehensive about seeing the film. I had a basic, and I mean absolute basic, understanding of the X-Men franchise. I thought I knew just about enough to get me through the film which, to be fair, I did. There wasn’t anything so far-fetched in the film that would require an overly extensive knowledge of the franchise, much to my relief. But having said that the movie could have been a lot better for the plot line they were trying to tell.

The action sequences seemed to go on for way too long. As I’m sure with most X-Men/Wolverine films the action sequences will make up most of the film as it is an action film. In Logan, however, I felt they were repetitive and went on for much too long. As Logan is more about the emotional side of the character than the action aspect I felt that they could have cut down the action sequences and had more time to develop the emotional personality of the character. If they had done this I think I would have connected with the film a lot more than I did.

A pet peeve of mine in films is when there is a bi-lingual character and instead of speaking in English or the primary language of the other characters in the scene they first say the line in another language and must repeat themselves in English. This happened quite frequently in Logan. I find it annoying and a complete waste of time. It had already been established the character did not speak English as their first language but they can speak it. I don’t see the point in wasting time in putting these details in the script when they have no relevance to the film in the first place. In my opinion, its padding for the script and if your script needs to be padded then maybe you need a few more weeks to go and re-work the script.

Overall, I found the film average at best. After checking the reviews for the film (8.7/10 – IMDB, 93% - Rotten Tomatoes and 4.5/5 – Entertainment.ie) I was expecting a lot more than what I got. Maybe it’s because I don't follow the franchise and I don’t make a habit of watching Marvel movies but there are aspects of the film that need to be revisited. The film was ok but I don’t think I’ll ever sit down and watch it again, or any other X-Men/Wolverine film for that matter.

First Impression Rating: 1.5/5