Beauty and the Beast 3D
[youtube=http://youtu.be/osU_T8HB-9U]
Tagline: The most beautiful love story ever told
Come clean, Hollywood! Is the purpose of 3D to take cinema to a new level (Avatar, Hugo) or simply cash in on your back catalog (The Lion King, Star Wars)? We must add Beauty and the Beast to the latter category as that movie’s re-release is upon us. It recounts the tale of the heroine Belle, taken prisoner by that hideous creature in his castle. She learns to see beneath the Beast’s exterior to discover the heart and soul of a prince. And it’s a heart and soul that will almost certainly leap out of the screen at you in three terrifying dimensions, possibly proving in, the irony of the week, that the film industry has neither heart nor soul.
The mainstream reviewers don’t seem altogether keen thus far to go back over old ground (though for the most part, the original got raves) so we turn to the slightly less quoted Hollywood & Fine, who said, “The 3D is unnecessary — but it doesn’t spoil the fun of Beauty and the Beast.” TIME’s Richard Corliss agrees, writing, “The process is sometimes an ornament, once or twice a distraction, but it doesn’t materially dilute the still-sublime experience.”
You know what you’re getting, but will you want to shell out for it? Perhaps if you have children, the question has already been answered.