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‘Beauty and the Beast’ wears a new coat in this screen
adaptation by Daniel Branz of the novel by Alex Finn
representing the classic fairytale which also spurred the
epoch making anime hit ‘Shrek. The message comes out pretty clear and
succinct. ‘Beauty is only skin deep and doesn’t matter in the
greater scheme of things. And Love conquers all.” Pretty boy Kyle Kingsbury(Alex Pettyfer) learns
this truth the hard way. His preening and mocking lends him a
curse from Kendra(Mary Kate Olsen), the resident witch and pronto he
gets transformed into an ugly but interesting looking baldie whose
father (a narcissistic news presenter) prefers to hide away in a remote
apartment. So it’s up to beastly Kyle to find his way back to
normalcy by learning to treat people with respect and falling in love
with a poor girl (Vanessa Hudgens) from a dysfunctional family. Kyle’s transformation from typical handsome hunk to interestingly ugly-even exotic bald headed, ink stained, mercury riveted bloke with an inferiority complex, is quite stunning thanks to the great prosthetic work by Tony Gardner. Writer-Director Daniel Branz gets the atmosphere and locations right, his narrative is also quite engaging but for the limiting talents of his main lead. Alex Pettyfer, though he looks the part, fails to lend depth to his character.
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