This is very much front loaded. I took my daughters (15 and 20) to this movie. The reason they wanted to go so much was the actress (Emma Watson) and the much hyped singers (Ariana Grande and John Legend). And of course they liked the original cartoon version. The theater had start times every half hour with a student discount. So the high school and college kids get in for $5. At my theater, the first showing at 7 pm was 90% full. And the lobby was pretty full for a Thursday when the movie was over so, the other showings must have had some audience.
The girls liked this more than I did. This version is very PC. In the original version, Belle was bored of her little town and wanted some adventure. In this version, she is a snob and the townspeople are literally illiterate. They make that point several times. There are only two types of people in this movie. Black and white. And they are proud to put black people all over, especially in the “smart roles” like librarian. And of course there are many mixed couples. Though its hyped, there is a gay character. But you really don’t understand that he is gay until the end. And even that is a “funny” brief one second clip.
The point of this movie is, that small town means small minds. They actually say it. Belle is a snob who rejects everyone in the town because they can’t read. The town stops her from teaching a small girl to read. But the town is not just illiterate they are evil too. In this version, Gaston ties up Belles father and leaves him to be eaten by the wolves.
Outside of the millennial star power this movie is simply not as good as the original. The PC additions to the script are obnoxious. It’s clear that the writers who adapted this are globalists. They think very little of the working class. It’s odd that there are now three races black, white, and gay. But the prince in the end looks very Nordic. You can’t disappoint those young girls who have come to see their Disney princess get a really good looking prince.
I was also annoyed by several close shots that looked like a hotel sales photo. You could not see how big something was. You were always seeing a small section of the scene. Also there was a lot of playing with the focus. Things you were not supposed to see where out of focus. Forcing you to look only at the important item in a scene. And some scenes had a drone camera experience that literally made me nauseous. You were flying around like you were a drone in the scene. I assume this was all part of the 3D experience going on in the theater next door. I hate when they ruin the regular version of a movie to support the 3D version.
The ethics here are disturbing. Disney always has a bit of a problem with ethics. They are way too concerned with whatever is PC at the time. To see a more ethical account of a similar theme, see Shrek. The movie pokes fun at Disney all over the place. But the important moral point comes at the end of Shrek, when the two main characters prefer to remain ogres and choose not to turn into a beautiful prince and princess as in a Disney movie.