Film

“Won her over with my library. Chicks dig books.”

Saved by the Belle

Beauty and the Beast, Disney’s wonderful animated musical from 1991, becomes part of the Disney Live Redo of a Beloved Animated Movie assembly line with a big-budget effort starring Emma Watson as the iconic Belle and Ewan McGregor as a CGI candelabra.

You are asking yourself, “Is this absolutely necessary?”

The answer: No. No it is not.

After hearing this answer, you take a walk with a nice cup of tea and your thoughts. You sit in the shade under your favorite tree and contemplate the plight of American movies today, for you like to crowd your mind with trivial things while drinking herbal mixtures.

Then, you ask yourself, “OK, if it isn’t necessary, is it at least an enjoyable pastime, for I like enjoyable pastimes? They help distract me from all of this trivial shit in my head.”

The answer: Why, yes, it is an enjoyable movie, even if it is completely unnecessary.

The movie isn’t a shot for shot remake of the original like, say, Gus Van Sant’s time-wasting Psycho effort. However, it does follow a lot of the same plot points and incorporates enough of the musical numbers to give you that sense of déjà vu while watching it.

Thankfully, Watson makes it worthwhile. Hermione makes for a strong Belle. Since director Bill Condon retains the music from the original animated movie, Watson is asked to sing, and it’s pretty evident that Auto-Tune is her friend. She has a Kanye West thing going.

As the Beast, Dan Stevens gives a decent enough performance through motion-capture. The original intent was to have Stevens wearing prosthetics only, but he probably looked like Mr. Snuffleupagus in dailies, so they called upon the help of beloved computers. Like King Kong last

week, the CGI creation blends in nicely with his totally human, organic cast member. The cast and crew labor to make musical numbers like “Gaston” and “Be Our Guest” pop with the creative energy of the animated version, but they don’t quite reach those heights. They are nicely rendered, for sure, but not on the masterpiece level that was the ’91 film. As for the romance between Belle and the Beast, it has a nice emotional payoff. In a way, the movie is a sweet tribute to the animated movie, rather than being a movie that stands on its own. Where does Beauty and the Beast stack up with the other, recent redos of animated Disney classics? I would put it well above Pete’s Dragon, but below Cinderella and The Jungle Book, which were more solid efforts and felt a little more on the original side. Beauty and There are worse things to do in cinemas right now than the Beast watch a good enough retake on a Disney movie starring one of your 12345 favorite members of the Potter universe. Beauty and the Beast is good-tasting yet ultimately disposDirector: Bill Condon able fluff. Let’s face it, Disney Starring: Emma Watson, Ewan has the money to throw away on McGregor, Dan Stevens ventures such as this and, given their box office takes, this train is going to keep on rolling. If you like Disney redo fluff, there’s more coming. The Lion King, Aladdin, Dumbo, Peter Pan and Mulan are just a few of the remakes in the pipeline. Actually, pretty much everything they’ve done up until now is being remade. Universal has a Little Mermaid movie on the way, yet Disney still has plans to release its own live version of the animated gem. Winnie the Pooh and Cruella, the villain from 101 Dalmatians, are also current projects. In short, with this juggernaut, Star Wars and Marvel all under their dome, Disney is so big, they will be governing the planet soon. Stay tuned for Disney Health Care, a Disney Missile Defense System, and Mickey Mouse for President. Oh, wait … that last one has happened already. Ω

3The Belko Experiment If this schlocky horror offering suffers from anything, it’s that it thinks it is deeper and cleverer than it actually is. Penned by James Gunn, this silly movie pits a bunch of office staff workers against one another after a voice comes over their intercom telling them to start killing each other off or everybody dies. The building is sealed, the “experiment” is put into motion, and the likes of Tony Goldwyn and John C. McGingley start acting like real homicidal assholes. Directed by Greg McLean, the film is fun on a very base level. (If you like movies where lots of heads blow up, this one’s for you!) There’s a definite terror involved in not knowing whose head is going to blow up next, and the folks handling the gore factor do a pretty good job. It’s when the big reveal comes at the end, a big reveal that offers absolutely nothing in the surprise category, that the movie loses a few points. John Gallagher, Jr. (10 CloverfieldLane) is good as the protagonist, a guy who does his darndest to not join in on the inter-office carnage. You could look at this as deep satire, or a resonating meditation on the current state of mind control when it comes to government and employers in an increasingly paranoid society. I like to look at it as a film where brains go flying in a fairly convincing, somewhat entertaining manner.

4Get Out Chris (Daniel Kaluuya), a young AfricanAmerican man, is a little nervous. He’s going to visit the parents of Rose Armitage (Allison Williams), his white girlfriend. Rose is relaxed about the trip, but Chris is anxious. His anxiety proves justified shortly into the trip. Upon arrival at her large estate, her parents like Chris. They really, really like Chris. Actually, parents Missy and Dean (Catherine Keener and Bradley Whitford) like Chris at a level that’s a bit unsettling. Chris shrugs it off at first, as does Allison, but strange things start happening. Writer-director Jordan Peele, the comedic performer from TV’s Key&Peele, and the adorable, funny cat movie Keanu, delivers a huge cinematic surprise with GetOut, a twisted, darkly satiric, nasty little horror film that pulls no punches when it comes to race relations and dating. Peele has cited Nightof theLivingDeadand TheStepfordWivesas inspiration for this journey to the dark side of his creative soul. Those films’ influences are detectable, and I’d say you could throw in a pinch of Rosemary’sBabywith a side of Being JohnMalkovichas well. Two of the hardest things to accomplish with a movie are to make people laugh and get them legitimately scared. GetOutmanages to do both for its entire running time.

3Kong: Skull Island The KingKongcinematic machine gets cranking again with Kong:SkullIsland, an entertaining enough new take on the big ape that delivers the gorilla action but lags a bit when he isn’t on screen smashing things. Among Kongincarnations, this one has the most in common with the 1976 take on the classic story, basically because it’s set just a few years earlier in ’73. While there is a beautiful girl the big guy does get a small crush on (Brie Larson as a photographer), the story eschews the usual “beauty and the beast” Kong angle for more straight-up monster vs. monster action. Unlike the past American Kong films, this one never makes it overseas to Manhattan, opting to stay on Kong’s island—thus, the title of the film. Kong himself is portrayed by motion-capture CGI, and he’s a badass. He’s also tall enough to be a formidable foe for Godzilla, a mash-up already announced for 2020. In the few scenes where he interacts with humans, Kong plays like an organic creature rather than a bunch of gigabytes. He blends well with his human counterparts. That’s right, there hasn’t been much mention of those human counterparts yet. That’s because, with the exception of John C. Reilly as a fighter pilot stranded on the island during World War II, most of the humans are bland. Tom Hiddleston might make a decent James Bond someday, and he’s a lot of fun as Loki, but he just doesn’t play here as a rugged tracker/action hero. Reilly, on the other hand, gives the film the bursts of humor it needs. His castaway is a wild card, like Dennis Hopper in ApocalypseNow. Actually, the whole movie, with its post-Vietnam setup and Nixon-era themes, plays likeApocalypse Nowmeets KingKong. When Reilly is on screen, it plays like ApocalypseNowmeets KingKong meets TalladegaNights.

4The Lego Batman Movie This is the great Batman story that BatmanvSupermanfailed to be. Even better, it has Will Arnett voicing Batman with a new, super amped, still dark, but amazingly well rounded and sometimes humorous incarnation. After all these years of dark—and admittedly sometimes brilliant—Batman movies, it’s nice to have a vehicle where we can just have fun with the character. Director Chris McKay, along with a long list of writers, has come up with a story that will please adult Batman fans as much as the kids who will most assuredly be dropped off at the local Cineplex to watch a movie while parents catch a break from the little mayhem makers. Arnett’s Batman not only faces off against the Joker (a very funny Zach Galifianakis), but finds himself in a scenario where he’s battling a smorgasbord of movie villains including King Kong, the Gremlins, Dracula, evil British robots and Voldemort (Eddie Izzard), to name just a few. It’s a nutty plot element that also allows for Batman mainstays like Bane, Two-Face (Billy Dee Williams, who was Harvey Dent in Tim Burton’s Batman) and the Riddler (Conan O’Brien!) to get in on the act. It’s a geek fest, a movie lover’s delight that has a funny little trivia bit at nearly every turn and an emotional center.

5Logan Hugh Jackman—allegedly—says goodbye to Wolverine with Logan, a total shocker of a superhero movie that lays waste to the X-Menand standalone Wolverinemovies that came before it. Director James Mangold, who piloted the decent TheWolverine, revamps the character’s mythos, and pulls along Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) for the gritty, bloody, nasty, awesome ride. It’s the future, and the X-Men are gone. A mutant hasn’t been born in a quarter of a century, and Logan isn’t looking too hot. He’s driving a limo to make ends meet, coughing up blood, and basically not aging well. He’s doing a lot better than Xavier, the mutant formally known as Professor X, who’s prone to seizures and suffering from some sort of degenerative brain disease. In short, the days of X-Men glory are way, way over, with Logan and Xavier having a shit time in their autumn years. Just when it seems as if the pair will waste away in their miserable existence, along comes Laura (a dynamite Dafne Keen). She’s a genetically engineered mutant equipped with the same retractable claws and viciously bad temper as Logan. When her life becomes endangered, Logan throws her and Xavier in the back of his vehicle, and they are off on one wild, dark road trip. To say this movie is violent would be an understatement.

4Split Writer-director M. Night Shyamalan has finally made his first good movie since Signs(2002) with Split, a down-to-thebasics, creepy thriller propelled by excellent performances from James McAvoy and Anya Taylor-Joy (TheWitch). The film reminds us that Shyamalan can be a capable director and writer when he’s not getting too carried away. Taylor-Joy plays Casey, a high school outcast who attends a birthday party but soon finds herself and two classmates imprisoned by a strange man with multiple personalities (McAvoy). In addition to the angry man who kidnaps them, he’s also a stately, mannered woman, a 9-year-old child and, well, a few others. One of those other personalities plays a big part in taking the film into other realms beyond psychological thriller. McAvoy goes nuts with the role, and Shyamalan takes things into supernatural territories in a chilling climax.