The crowds were in, an excitable sizzle transferred from one anxious viewer to another, and the smell popcorn sat heavy in the air. It was movie night, and everyone was looking forward to one of the first ever public viewings of Walt Disney’s live action Beauty and the Beast.

The energy was almost tangible, but I’ll be the first to admit that I did not walk into the theater with particularly high expectations. The 1991 animated movie and the popular stage musical are classics for Disney lovers of course, but I didn’t think they could make it any more fantastic than it already was without making the movie ridiculous. The 2016 rendition of The Jungle Book was fun, but it wasn’t the most amazing thing I’d ever seen.

The CGI was great, but I’ve still seen better. The story was a nice mesh of new and old. All in all, it was a good movie, but not good enough to stand out as it’s own work. It would always be tacked on with the animated movie. With Beauty and the Beast, I was expecting much the same thing: a fun movie with characters I already love, and songs I can already sing along to.

At first, the movie was just nice. Not wonderful, awe-inspiring, or the very center of every Disney fanatic’s dream; just nice. I recognized that the songs had a bit of a pop feel to them, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about that, but I let it slide for the time being. Then, Maurice, Belle’s father, started singing a song that was not in the original film or the Broadway musical. Then Gaston had a moment of character development, then LaFou had a moment of character development, and suddenly, I was no longer just watching Emma Watson play Belle; I was watching an old work made into something more. The reevaluation of facts and characters changed so much more than I could have imagined.

Questions left by the animated film, such as, “Where is Mr. Potts?” or “Why doesn’t anyone remember the giant caste in the middle of the forest?” are answered by the 2017 screenwriters, Stephen Chbosky and Evan Spiliotopoulos. The film found a way to stand up on it’s own, while still remaining true to the original movie.

Also rather interesting was the underlying topic of sexuality. The innuendoes were not evident enough that parents have to be concerned about their children watching the film, but just obvious enough for adults to pick up on. One such example was the reevaluation of the sung lines, “In a wrestling match nobody bites like Gaston.” The lyrics are the same as they were before, but the context are completely reversed.
All in all, the movie far surpassed my expectations. It made me feel a wide range of emotions, and I fell in love with the story of the Belle and her Beast all over again. So get your tickets now, because this weekend, Beauty and the Beast is the must see film.