Belle

I realised belatedly that this was a fresh new take on Beauty and The Beast only when the Beast was introduced, so I thought that this would be a typical romance story. But it wasn't and although it had darker themes such as child ab*se, it was handled quite alright - nothing too explicit but the ending felt incomplete. The visuals were stunning and the songs were incredibly beautiful. That last song even brought me to tears.

Spectacular visuals and animation but narrative is disjointed, particularly in the latter half of the film. Set up and themes don't quite land. Weak story.

LIKES:

The Voice Acting: When it comes to this world of animation, there are plenty of people who can make or break the characters, but in my perspective the Japanese voice cast scores levels that English Actors can sometimes miss. All of the group did a stellar job in the performances granted before them, a mixture of laughable tags, parody like delivery, and raw emotion that unleashes the struggle of the characters. When the musical performances come up, the assigned voice actor accomplishes a blend of emotional satisfaction and musical prowess. It accomplishes much of the mannerisms that make anime characters so great and memorable and Belle is no exception.

The Story To Some Degree: Belle's tale is very relatable to the modern era as it dives into the media that connects so many lives in one place, the internet. The story takes place in an app called U, which is all about bringing out your avatar via cool futuristic technology and allows you to be what you want in the world. In this world, anything is possible, and the movie shows the possibility of the communal watering hole and the fame/worship that comes. What's a big favor for me though is how this movie adds more layers to the film by integrating other parts of the tale. Our main character Suzu has a lot of baggage, and her friends have their own vulnerabilities that are certainly going to be relevant to the audience. It mixes these together in a lot of small subplots, and gives us characters that feel semi-realistic. These worlds continue to cross back and forth in the search for happiness, only to then wrap it up in an interpretation of Beauty and the Beast. This multi-tiered approach surprisingly works well, and gives us this mini-series feeling that is entertaining and yet deep the way anime can be.

The Songs: This movie is a lot of a love story component, but also one about finding yourself in the mess of all the horrors that the fickle world brings. While the story does a fine job of plastering the horrors of the modern world and how one must find strength and means to face those horrors. For me though... it's the music that really drives the point home and the scenes around it. Belle's songs are very few in terms of the track list, and the variety is very minimal as well, with few being the toe tapping pop or rock options that anime series have made famous. However, the movie uses the songs to an incredible degree to display the emotion of the moment and really drive the heart and soul. As mentioned earlier, the vocal performances are incredible, the combination of symphony and pop is beautiful, and really reflects the character of Suzu. It's not a parody of the famous Disney movies, but rather dives deeper and despite odd lyrics, the movie unleashes so much of the symbolism this movie wants to show you. Something definitely for a Spotify playlist, but I really enjoyed the beauty of this work.

The Animation, at least 75% of it: Belle is definitely noteworthy of the anime magic for me and much of it has to do with the animation they have brought to the table. For one thing, the design is brilliant on many levels, a mash up of typical Japanese school life, merged with Ready Player One computer assistance, and then further painted with a Japanese paint of Beauty and the Beast. All these styles manage to hold an emotion and magic to themselves, with shading, colors, and a style all about capturing the essence of the moment. Of these worlds, the U world was my style, well there animation is much smoother, the colors and designs much more vivid, and a world that really felt like a warped version of the classic tale. The moments where the animation was heavily invested hold much more than simple movement, but rather hold the entire atmosphere of the scene and it's great to see that art style come to life and feel different from the likes of Nickelodeon and Disney. Truly seventy-five percent of the movie accomplished this and really impressed me when music, sound, and animation worked in the harmony the Eastern culture has practiced for years.

DISLIKES:

Pacing: At times, Belle is very slow, and sometimes gets a bit too lost in the emotion and not enough in the actual story. Belle is very much a movie that is part afterschool special, and these moments do have a lot of comedy and fun to it, but sometimes gets too lost in the routine to deprive you of the linear pace I enjoy. It made for some slow moments, and some wasted potential to really enjoy other qualities I wanted more of.

The Animation For the Other 25% I have to say that there are times where things were skimped, filling sequences and lesser moments that the team seemed to think tertiary to the rest of the film. These moments in Belle are not very well animated, basic lines, colors, and shading that is very bland and dull compared to the other moments of the movie. Whether this was symbolic or just cost/time saving steps, it's something I'm not a fan of when you see other studios put out more consistent work to keep the splendor going. Belle's team needed a little mor work on optimizing everything to bring the full drop, but I guess things got away from them during this time in our world.

The Characters: Lots of players are in this movie, and some are done fantastically, and others are the stuff of dreams in the background to create your own fiction with. Belle fails to balance the secondary characters that Beauty did long ago, at least in terms of the digital world. The cute little AI sprites are great for merchandising, but hold less story usage and integration that more time and planning could have helped. While the human counterparts have more involvement, it's really the cyber world where a lot of the tension/action occurs at least until the end. Even the antagonists are boring, some knock offs from other lore or anime, and do little to deliver the full on blow like Gaston did long ago. Again, build up, introduction and full on use are important for me.

The World Building or lack thereof: The world of U is supposed to be the hub of possibility and recreation, and yet for such a world it's lacking the majesty that I envision places like this could be. Belle's world building is gorgeous when they do it, the architecture of several places, and the creatures have the pizazz that this medium can bring. However, there was so much to explore and perform in, to hide and flee around as the two characters explored the boundaries and limitations this new relationship brought with it. Yet the world of U is surprisingly bland and centrally located given the potential I've seen in other series.

The Story: Truth is the story is complete and deep on many levels, but the movie still feels incomplete and too crammed to be the artistic piece that movies like Spirited Away are known for. Belle's tale has a lot of ground to cover in a short two hours, and this beautiful soap opera needs more time to really give us everything they were going for. Belle is torn between a lot of things, the real life struggles of the characters, the relationship between Belle and Beast, the struggle of the fame and fortune, and even the tragic histories that defined them. If done in a mini-series or a four part saga, I think the movie would have accomplished the master storytelling it could be, but in one installment, there was a lot of things that felt rather blunted and not quite wrapped up like they could have. That haphazard finish blunts the beauty of Belle's story somewhat, and gives it a more generic feeling that others have stated.

The VERDICT:

Belle is beautiful in many ways to be worthy of seeing in your lifetime. The movie really hits a lot of audience types, diving into relative realms of problems that plague the world today. Its characters, at least the primary, have a lot of layers to it, and the voice acting brings a fantastic performance to anchor on to. Then the music and animation, for the most part, help deliver the full ambience that gave me goosebumps and stuck with me as I left the theater. These moments are the true bread and butter of the film and the biggest theater presence. However, the story needs more time, more parts, or something to really give it all it was promised. The story is very compressed and hasty, giving you some great meat for the main plot, while the subplots feel withered and dried out. Buildup, character usage, world building, and action are very lacking though and I can't say I was disappointed in several of the things they had been teasing me with. Still, the move hits deep and shows much of the craft of the Eastern animators and their art.

My scores are:

Animation/Adventure/Drama: 8.0 Movie Overall: 7.0.

I really thought the animation was great and I loved a lot of the stylistic choices. A lot of the ideas involving the internet and music were also very cool. There is just A LOT going on with the story. There's a lot of elements of Beauty and the Beast, The Matrix, and other ideas and I don't feel like they always came together smoothly. All in, I'm happy to have watched it.

Hot off the high from his first Oscar nomination for 2018's Mirai, Japanese director Mamoru Hosoda returns with a touching virtual-reality riff on the classic beauty and the beast tale. But don't let the familiar source material lull you into a false sense of security; Hosoda is not playing it safe just because he has a reliable tale to fall back on. In fact, after years of constant comparison to the films of Studio Ghibli and their unrivaled consistency and pedigree, it seems like the Oscar nomination may have renewed some confidence and ambition back into the veteran director.

Like The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, this film follows another likable teenage protagonist, Suzu who, unfortunately, is unbearably grief-stricken after the death of her mother when she was six. After over a decade of lament, Suzu still has trouble understanding why her mother would put herself in the position that led to her untimely death. She often finds herself crying uncontrollably, only able to compose herself time and time again with the help of her longtime friend, Hiro.

Suzu's relationship with her mother is portrayed through many wordless montages, only accompanied by the gorgeous work of the film's trio of composers, Taisei Iwasaki, Ludvig Forssell, and Yuta Bandoh. As devastating as it is to lose her mother, Suzu's grief is amplified by her own inability to find her singing voice again after the tragedy, despite her efforts. The despair and loneliness she deals with on a daily basis eventually lead her to try U, a new virtual universe that already totals over 5 billion users.

U's technology works by conducting a biometric scan of its user, then creating a personalized avatar. For Suzu, her avatar appears as a beautiful and slender woman with pink hair, really only recognizable as Suzu due to the splash of freckles underneath her eyes. Once in cyberspace, the urge is irresistible. Suzu begins to sing-- And she sings beautifully. So beautifully in fact that it is only a matter of days before Suzu finds herself with millions of followers, all ready to pack virtual auditoriums as Suzu gives performances under the moniker of Belle.

Described by Hosoda as "the one I've been wanting to make," the giddiness of a director finally allowed to make their long-gestating dream project is palpable onscreen, particularly in the film's virtual world sequences. In the real world, the animation is classic hand-drawn work, but in U, Hosoda translates the world's infinite possibilities into a spectacularly dynamic CG landscape, complete with a kinetic camera that swirls and moves in ways only possible in an animated world.

If none of this so far sounds like the beauty and the beast you know and love, don't worry. The "beast" of this tale makes his grand appearance right at the end of the first act as he crashes through a giant dome that acted as a venue for one of Belle's performances. A figure only known as "The Dragon" is seen being pursued by self-proclaimed "Justices" of U. Though he is said to be wildly aggressive and ruining the sanctity of U, Belle immediately believes there is more to him than meets the eye, recognizing a pain that she herself has seen before. Intrigued by The Dragon, Belle suspends any future performances and instead devotes her time to discovering the identity of and connecting more with the mysterious beast.

Outside of U, Suzu must balance her newfound stardom online with the meek reputation she has with real-life friends and classmates. Where the usual high school relationships and drama could, in the hands of a less skilled director, grind the imagination and creativity shown thus far to a halt, Hosoda surprisingly manages to make the grounded portions of his film just as engaging and playful as the virtual primarily by mining the material for a surprising amount of laughs.

Where the film does falter a bit is with its final act, and while the two storylines are engaging in their own right, there is a feeling that they are too dissimilar to one another to possibly connect in a believable way by the end. And for the most part, this is true. The film employs some eye-rolling contrivances in its race-against-the-clock finale, but when the last scene's emotions hit and Suzu fully blossoms into the strong woman she knows she is, the machinations that led the film to that point are largely forgivable.

When all is said and done, it is not going to be the final moments that stick with you from Belle. It's going to be the wonder and visual inventiveness of the virtual sequences -- the sprawling endlessness of the online world and the guiding hand of a director keen on pushing his film beyond that. Hosoda may have spent much of his career in the shadow of the great Studio Ghibli, but with Belle, he certainly makes the most of his chance at the spotlight.