“How would you feel about growing a beard?”

From Beauty and the Beast.

Belle (Emma Watson) lives in a small French village with her clumsy artist/inventor father (Kevin Kline), and she longs for a life with adventure and purpose.  The books she read can only provide so much escape from the harsh looks and words from the townspeople or the very unwanted advances from Gaston (Luke Evans).  Belle is unhappily stuck in her life until her father goes missing on a trip; when she finally finds her father in a decrepit castle, he has been made the prisoner of a mysterious beast (Dan Stevens).  In order to spare her father’s life, she trades places with him as the Beast’s prisoner and is then introduced to the other residents of the castle (Ewan McGregor, Ian McKellen, Emma Thompson, Audra McDonald, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, and Stanley Tucci).  Belle is the only human resident in the castle, because the entire staff has been cursed along with their prince (the beast) to live the rest of their lives as normally-inanimate objects.  The beast was cursed because he had no love in his heart and the curse has only hardened his heart further… because who could love someone that hideous?  Headstrong Belle refuses to give up on life and forces Beast to start living again, so much so that everyone begins to wonder if she could be the one to break their curse.

This live-action remake of the animated movie is part of Disney’s plan to make a good thing better, and it is spectacular in every way!  While the original was slightly limited with its target audience, this movie is more appealing for a wider range of viewers.  The music, both old and new, is breath-taking; the sets, costumes, and choreography are incredible, and only add to the all-star cast that takes a well-known character and creates something memorable.  Other than an action passed off as a joke about a certain character’s hinted sexual orientation and a few frightening moments, there is nothing to exclude viewers of any age.  Possibly the best movie of the 2017, Beauty and the Beast will captivate viewers and will require multiple viewings to catch every magical detail.

| Rated: PG | Running Time: 129 minutes |Genre: fantasy/romance/musical |

||Family Viewing||Cursing: 0 of 10|Nudity: 0 of 10|Sexuality: 1 of 10|Gore: 2.5 of 10

|AVAILABLE FOR HOME VIEWING|