Beauty and the Beast Blu-ray Review

By: Lynn Barker

In Beauty and the Beast, when Belle (Emma Watson), a small town girl looking for adventure in the outside world, stumbles upon a weird, seemingly abandoned castle in the woods, she has no idea that its occupant will be the man of her dreams. After all he’s really big, covered with fur and has the scary face of a demon. But, love will find a way!

Belle strolls around her small villageCourtesy of Disney

Early Beast and the Curse

When a handsome but vain French prince (Dan Stevens) won’t take a beautiful rose offered him by a beggar woman in exchange for shelter, she turns into her true enchantress self and curses him to morph into a horrible beast and his servants to be household objects. Since he has no compassion or ability to love, everything will stay that way if he doesn’t find a true love before the last rose petal falls.

Belle (Emma Watson) discovers the enchanted roseCourtesy of Disney

Meanwhile

In the village of Villenueve, many years later, an inventive, pretty and studious young woman named Belle takes care of her protective, clockmaker dad Maurice (Kevin Kline), and longs to escape her boring village life. She rebuffs the advances of doofus town “hottie” Gaston (Luke Evans) who wants to marry her. When dad Maurice takes the wrong turn while going to market, he is attacked by wolves and escapes to a weird castle with a talking teacup! He tries to leave but, since he plucked a rose from the garden, the resident Beast locks him away.

Gaston with his number 1 fan LeFouCourtesy of Disney

Belle Searches

When dad’s horse returns without him, Belle rides to find him, finds the castle and discovers Maurice locked up there. The Beast appears and, after initial shock, Belle pleads with him for dad’s release. She offers to take his place and locks herself in dad’s cell. Maurice is returned to the village but Gaston and others think his tale of a monstrous Beast in a mysterious castle with talking teacups is madness.

Belle with her dadCourtesy of Disney

Enchanted Castle

Belle is locked in a dungeon but is befriended by talking candelabra Lumiere (voice of Ewan McGregor) and a load of furniture that was once the beasts/prince’s human servants. They set up her in a nice room and ask her to “Be Our Guest” for dinner! Gradually the Beast warms to Belle and she to him. They are falling in love. Beast allows Belle to leave the castle to care for her sick dad but Gaston won’t believe her story that this Beast is kind and he leads the townspeople to kill him. Will Belle be able to save him? Will she break his curse before the last petal falls?

Cursed objects in the Beast's castleCourtesy of Disney

Special Extra Features

There are many cool extras in this Blu-ray/DVD/Digital combo pack. The film looks and sounds crisp and beautiful.

• Enchanted Table Read departs from the usual meetings where, early on, cast and filmmakers get together to read through the script aloud. This time we have singing and dancing.. Emma going through her waltz with “Beast” etc.  Luke Evans and group practices singing and dancing through the song “Gaston”, etc. Very worth a watch.
• A Beauty of a Tale is a multi-part “making of” extra that focuses on turning the 1991 animated film into a live action classic. The cast discusses their love of the animated film and their hopes to pay tribute while doing their own thing. We see work on U.K. stages and the cast learning dances. Emma and Dan realizing they could sing is included as well as production design, CGI characters, lighting and Dan Stevens in his weird, padded, grey, Beast motion capture suit with dots on his face. It’s a wonder Emma Watson didn’t crack up laughing.  Fun to watch.
• The Women Behind Beauty and the Beast is a really nice featurette in which Emma Watson introduces all the many women behind the camera working on production..make-up, costumes, on set tech stuff etc. Each woman gives advice to teens and young women hoping to work in show biz. The advice works for guys too.  Very valuable!!

On set with Emma and her directorCourtesy of Disney

• From Song to Screen: Making the Musical Sequences centers on sets, costumes, lighting, design etc. for each of the major songs. Cool.
• Extended Song: “Days in the Sun” shows us another version of this song that wasn’t in the film. Interesting.
• Deleted Scenes are all short but charming and fun to watch.
• Making a Moment with Celine Dion – This is a very touching extra in which the famous songstress who sang “Beauty and the Beast” way back in 1991 talks about her personal journey to agreeing to sing “How does a Moment Last Forever” in this version of the film 26 years later.
• We have the modern “Beauty and the Beast” Music Video and the “Making Of” by Ariana Grande and John Legend.. very nice.
• There is also a sing-along Collection of all the major songs with lyrics running across the bottom of the screen so you can warble along.. Love it!

Belle curtsies before her dance with BeastCourtesy of Disney

Wrapping Up

The new Beauty and the Beast looks great on video and the extras are all well worth watching, especially any with Dan Stevens playing Beast on stilts and in a weird grey, fatty mo-cap suit. Just amazing but I still love those goofs, bloopers and gags when actors show us they are human by blowing lines!! Miss that. There is no audio commentary either. It would have been cool to have Emma sitting, watching the film and commenting.

The Beast and Belle danceCourtesy of Disney

Overall, the film is totally enjoyable and this Blu-ray/DVD/Digital pack is well worth adding to your home collection or gifting. We go four stars.

Beauty and the Beast Blu-ray Rating: 

Beauty and the Beast Blu-ray CoverCourtesy of Disney

Buy Beauty and the Beast in stores etc. on Tuesday, June 6^th!

Have Your Say

Do you have the original animated classic in your home collection? Did you see the new live action film? Ready to collect or gift it? Leave us a comment!