calherewecome

Last night was date night again here. We got a baby sitter for Mary and off we went for three hours of down time from care giving. So we went to see “Beauty and the Beast” playing at the AMC Rolling Hills theater in Torrance.

First, I want to talk about the theater. We’ve gone to this theater before. They charge almost double what we pay at the Terraces in Rancho Palos Verdes. And, they have changed snack prices. They no longer sell a “small” popcorn, now the medium is the new small. It’s sort of the incredible shrink ray comes to the theater. They’ve done the same thing with spring water. So instead of paying $5 for a small popcorn and 1/2 liter of spring water, now we pay $12 for medium popcorn and a liter bottle of vitamin water. And don’t get me going on the “vitamin water” scam.

So next time the bottle of water and snacks go into Paula’s purse. They also had the audio set a tad bit too loud. The effect was to make some of musical numbers sound a bit muddied.

And now let’s talk about the film. Film time was about 2 hrs and 9 minutes. It seemed to me to be a bit on the long side. At about 1.5 hour into the film, I started thinking to myself, “C’mon Belle, kiss the Beast and get it done.” But no, there was a lot more singing and dancing to be done. I mean we all know the fairy tale, the princess kisses the frog and he turns into a prince. And then they live happily ever after.

Emma Watson was okay in the role of Belle, but she just doesn’t quite have the pipes to belt out the songs like say Celine Dion or other pop diva. It kind of reminded me of the movie “My Fair Lady” where the character Eliza played by Audrey Hepburn had the musical numbers dubbed by Marni Nixon.

Dan Stevens played the Beast. I was impressed how he managed  to sing and dance while up on 12″ stilts. And impressive makeup, indeed. Good job. Paula was complaining that they didn’t have enough close up time so she could see Stevens’ baby blue eyes. Dan Stevens is also famous for his role of Matthew in Downton Abbey from 2010-2012

I loved the names of the supporting cast. Lumiere for the candlestick, Maestro Cadenza for the harpsichord, and so on. Good solid supporting cast.

For my money, the best song and dance number was “Be Our Guest”. You can’t help but be humming it as you leave the theater. I will probably play it at our next OES meeting.

Also, make sure you stay for all the credits. Overall, I liked it. It’s rated PG. That being said, I wouldn’t take real little kids to see it. There some real scary stuff in those dark woods.

We didn’t get to eat out after the show. We were on the clock. When we got home I threw a frozen pizza in the oven and poured myself a  glass of wine.

This entry was posted on April 7, 2017 at 5:05 pm and is filed under Reviews. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

Tags: AMC, Beast, Beauty, Beauty and the Beast