Starting on Friday make your way to the movies to see the latest production of Beauty and the Beast. I know been there and done that but not in this way and not with this cast and for that it is worth revisiting the tale as old as, well you know. This time it is not in a cartoon form or done on a Broadway stage. This time it is a $300million dollar movie production complete with special effects and amazing technology to make the Beast look real and have dressers, tea pots and candle sticks and anything else you can think of talk and dance as fluid as you can.  If you are sick of the story and songs because you grew up or grew older listening and watching it, revisit it for the action and the amazing famous people in it that you recognize and love from other successful adventures they did in their personal careers.

It is an old fashioned   300 year old tale about bestiality brought to life. It is about the prince charming along with his loyal subjects cursed because of a spell brought to life again in a big budget musical using all the same songs you know so well. It has been 25 years since the cartoon Disney version was released. This story is unique because it is the only Disney tale that allows the female lead to have spunk and push her agenda forward. She is constantly fighting back. Just the coming attractions video has been viewed now on line more than any other in movie history. Even more than those famous outer space movies. Emma Watson plays Belle who we all saw grow up since her childhood role in the Harry Potter movies where she played Hermione the little girl who was bookish and feisty. She is now a beautiful young woman   perfect for this part.

Belle here cares more about her brains than her beauty. Beast is played by the handsome Dan Stevens who we all know from his role on Downton Abby now transformed into a talking beast by the latest in computer graphics that can copy every human expression onto a fictional character. Josh Gad plays LeFou who is Gaston’s comedic sidekick.   We know   Josh from being the snowman in Frozen.  Here LeFou wants to be just like Gaston and eventually shares a kiss with him. Yes two men kissing has gotten this movie banned from viewing to children in Russia. Seriously? How scandalous for the Russians? Trump and Putin is not scandalous? The Russians are restricting children under the age of 16 to see the movie. Meanwhile the story is a morality tale.

The Oscar winning theme song that was made famous by Celine Dion and Peabo Bryson is now refreshed by Ariana Grande and John Legend. Oscar winner Emma Thompson pours herself into the role of a live action teapot, a peachy part for any British actress. Madame DeGarderobe  is played by Tony Award legend Audra McDonald with her perfect voice to her songs while being a very mobile dresser and the wardrobe for Belle. It is so entertaining to see stationary objects come to life as they did in the old cartoons where animals spoke and brooms danced while chairs passed judgements. True fantasy!

Stanly Tucci plays her husband and doesn’t sing thankfully since he can’t sing well. Despite all the fans of Beauty and the Beast some hate the story because the story from the very beginning starts with a woman being a prisoner held hostage by a transforming man to beast. Who falls in love with a beast anyway? How did this story become so famous? The strength of this story is the love story that evolves and who doesn’t like a love story? So, just go see a defiantly beautiful new rendition of a tale as old as time about romance and love that conquers all.