This is Literally Take per Take with the Cartoon
Word for word, scene per scene
People saying they like the cartoon but not this doesn't make any sense
It feels like an empty, soulless, frankly dumb version of the cartoon. When the 90s film came out, the story was new and the animators and director did an amazing job bringing life to these characters and their world. They truly convinced you that Belle and the Beast truly started falling for each other throughout the film, so their union at the end felt natural.
The acting in this film felt like an atrocious mockery of the original film. Everyone acted like bored high school students that had done this play 300 times and were sick of it by the time the cameras started rolling. Nobody could really convince you they were feeling what their characters should have been feeling. Instead of creativity; feminism, misandry, and cliches were the order of the day. Whoever wrote the script for this film evidently had no real respect for the source material, didn't care about anything other than being paid, and assumed that their "creative ideas" (which were about as cliched as the entire "Nutcracker" movie) would look clever and innovative, when in fact, the audience didn't buy into it one bit.
And to cast someone like Emma Watson, the raging feminist who plays an angry Hermione in every movie she's in, was a bad idea. Evidently when she's not Hermione, she can't act to save her life. She can't even cry convincingly on camera! In fact, one of the most insulting things in the film (besides letting her design her own costumes, which was a bad idea), was Emma's Belle looking bored and tired during the ballroom scene, showing no real affection for the Beast at all despite spending months getting to know him, and still whining about being a prisoner. It's like she could barely stand being in the same room with him. By this time in the movie, Belle should have been feeling warm, romantic feelings for the Beast, but not ready to admit it to even herself, despite her body language in the ballroom. The cartoon Belle showed this flawlessly, but Emma? Not even in the slightest.
It would be hard as a human actor to show affection for someone or something that had been keeping one a prisoner in any format
Maybe it wasn't going to work out between them, but she still loved the beast as an individual thus breaking the curse
All Emma Watson has to say on feminism is that she thinks we all deserve gender equality, both men and women. She's not a raging feminist that hates men or something
Only reason anything happened in that live-action film was because the script demanded it, not because the people in it could sell the story with their acting abilities (of which nearly the entire cast was in short supply).
Part of the reason Belle had stopped whining about being a prisoner in the cartoon was because she was so well-treated that she'd almost forgotten she was one to start with. That, and she was an honorable woman who stood by her promises with most people, unlike bratty, immature Emma, who would lie at the drop of a hat and try climbing out a castle window the first chance she got.
Pretty damned sad when a cartoon character can show better emotions than a second-rate actor.
Well, I enjoyed it but then I enjoy every second of screen time Emma Watson is in, in anything
And I'm even happier for her that this was the 10th highest grossing film of all time
I'm just going to say that the cartoon Belle who is won-over with gifts despite being kidnapped / imprisoned makes me worry it is putting bad ideas in little girls' heads. Where as live action Belle still not being enthused by either Beast OR Gaston is better. They were both PoS and hopefully she dumped Beast the second after his curse was broken for sure
I like her in the "Harry Potter" movies, but that's it.
The movie only earned that big flash of money due to nostalgia. People forgot about it just 4 months later after it came out on dvd and streaming (and that was 7 years ago). So keep in mind that this is all the money it will ever earn; because the classic cartoon still makes money from people still watching it and buying memorabilia from it, even to this day after 33 years, and it's probably outgrossed the live-action one several times over already.