Film reviews: Beauty And The Beast, Get Out, Personal Shopper

Beauty And The Beast 

It’s charming, delightful, packed full of great songs, swooningly romantic and all over in 84 minutes. The two hour-long remake is not a perfect movie, never quite coming to life despite the huge effort and evident expense. 

The budget is estimated at £131million. Lavishly made and visually stunning it’s certainly no flop and anyone who has not seen the original, of which this is an almost exact replica with added songs and scenes, will benefit from not being able to compare it unfavourably. 

It continues a trend by Disney to remake their animated classics as live-action movies begun with 2015’s Cinderella starring Lily James and directed by Kenneth Branagh, which I loved. 

It was a sumptuous and heartfelt adaptation of the ultimate romantic fairytale told with conviction and confidence, as if no previous version had come before. 

Cinderella herself was charmingly freespirited and good natured and attempts to make her a “modern” princess were subtle. 

The new Beauty And The Beast, by contrast, is too hidebound to the original, never quite evolving an identity or mood of its own while attempts to “modernise” the tale feel a touch too forced and become a little grating. 

We are told endlessly that Watson’s bookish heroine, Belle, is a modern woman who is “ahead of her time” like her late mother and far too good and clever for the small, rural, town of Villeneuve that she inhabits with her father, Maurice (a morose Kevin Kline), in 18th century France. 

Rather than charming, there’s something a bit patronising and pleased with herself about this Belle, combined with a performance by Watson that never quite loosens up and wins us over. 

She certainly looks the part – pretty as a peach – but there’s a twinkle and a spark missing. When she sings in the opening number, “there must be more than this provincial life” I couldn’t shake a feeling that she was a bit of a snoot. 

Meanwhile, attempts to update the friendship between Belle’s caddish pursuer Gaston (Luke Evans) and his goofy sidekick LeFou (Josh Gad) by suggesting the latter has feelings of unrequited love for his pal are, at best, clumsy and, at worse, rather demeaning. 

It’s played for laughs and cheap titters rather than anything more meaningful: “I’ve been told I’m clingy, I really don’t get it,” trills LeFou. 

The relationship has nothing to do with the theme of the film (about beauty being on the inside) and LeFou’s fondness for such an unpleasant fool as Gaston just makes him look stupid. 

The casting of Luke Evans as Gaston doesn’t help. No disrespect to Mr Evans but for a story about superficial beauty he just isn’t good looking enough. 

He’s also too old to be wooing Belle (he’s 37 and Watson is 26 but she looks younger whereas he looks older). Gaston should be sexier, more dashing and much more full of villainous wit and charm. 

I would choose the Beast over him. We don’t glimpse much of Dan Stevens as the Beast, only in a prologue during which his toffee-nosed prince is cursed by an enchantress (Hattie Morahan), and at the finale when the curse is lifted. 

For most of the film he’s a creation of visual effects with a deep, growly, voice. When he’s being angry and intimidating, the Beast is quite a powerful character but as he softens under the influence of Belle, whom he traps in his castle, he somehow loses his stature. 

It doesn’t help that the romance that evolves feels rather rote. I never quite believed that Belle fell in love with him. 

Supporting characters are fun – items of castle kitchenware and furniture voiced by the likes of Ewan McGregor, Stanley Tucci and Emma “Teapot” Thompson – and the set-piece musical sequences spring the picture into life. But “perfect”? Sadly, not. 

Get Out 

Meeting a partner’s parents for the first time can be a bit of a horror show and that’s exactly how it turns out for poor Chris in brilliantly chilling and slyly funny horror Get Out. 

Chris is an easy-going photographer who heads with his well-to-do girlfriend Rose (Allison Williams) to the country estate of her wealthy parents, played by Bradley Whitford and Catherine Keener, for the weekend. The slightly awkward twist? Chris is black, a fact that Rose has chosen not to pass on. 

Still, she reassures him that her neurosurgeon father is a Barack Obama supporter and all should be well. At first it appears to be so, despite the odd cringe-making faux-pas that betrays Rose’s parents’ lack of familiarity around black people who aren’t the staff (they have a rather creepily servile black groundsman and a housekeeper). 

Writer-director Jordan Peele deftly cranks up the tension, and the social awkwardness, as a big weekend party suggests the whole community of crusty white folk (“Black is in fashion,” chirps one oldie) may be in on a dark secret. 

It’s time for Chris, very engagingly played by British actor Daniel Kaluuya, to get out! 

Made for under $ 5million (£4.05million), the film has earned more than $ 110million (£90million) at the US box office in its first three weeks, proof that you don’t need stars or special effects to lure an audience. Just a fresh idea and a twisted imagination.

VERDICT: 4/5

Personal Shopper

Arthouse film Personal Shopper is a pointless and plotless cross between a ghost story and spiritualism drama from writer-director Olivier Assayas in which Twilight’s Kristen Stewart plays a personal shopper to a celebrity who, when she’s not picking up expensive handbags, tries to make contact with her recently deceased twin brother. 

Half the film consists of staring at her mobile phone as she receives anonymous text messages that are supposed to be creepy but are simply irritating – and go unresolved 

VERDCIT: 1/5