TheRetroCritic

I talk about Disney's latest live-action remake Beauty And The Beast .

Another year, another Disney live-action adaptation of one of their most beloved animated classics. This time, it's Beauty And The Beast 's turn with Emma Watson taking on the role of Belle and Dan Stevens as the Beast. It's been a hit-and-miss road for Disney with even its best remakes being just about average and still very much inferior to the originals. The Jungle Book may have killed at the box-office but it failed to capture the charm of the old film so this new outing, with the tons of CGI the trailers promised, looked like more of the same. The film opens with a ball taking place in the Prince's castle when an Enchantress in disguise shows up and puts a spell on him and everyone there. The expanded yet well-handled sequence leads us to more familiar territory as Belle is introduced and a big musical number follows. These first few minutes set the tone for things to come: some parts of the story are stretched longer, other parts are pretty much shot-for-sho

Darren Aronofsky may have sadly skipped on making The Wolverine some years ago but he is back, this time with a blockbuster Bible movie of all things and after the success of Black Swan , this could have either backfired wildly or made a huge impact. Noah , though, rests somewhere in between. On the one hand, here is one of the best Bible-themed movies of the past 20 years with Russell Crowe proving to be the perfect choice for Noah and Aronofsky bringing an otherworldly feel to the whole thing. On the other hand, the film runs out of steam somewhat once the much talked-about flood actually happens. Story-telling wise, this movie really finds the right tone, going for a swords and sorcery-style fantasy approach rather than a this-all-really-happened type of preachiness and earnestness. You've got angel rock monsters, Anthony Hopkins as Methuselah showing off the odd wizard-like powers and... um, did I mention the rock monsters? The film's first half is batshit insane an