Nit-Fix

Two of the biggest movies of the year were the remake of Beauty & The Beast and the reboot Spider-Man: Homecoming. Both were insanely huge at the box-office and were lauded by critics and audiences alike...And I didn't like either of them. But the reasons as to why are not the main focus of this post, that would be the reasons why others seem to like them. Whenever I speak to someone who enjoyed them, often the same few points would come up for each film. For Beauty & The Beast they would say "It actually explains why the servants got cursed as well!". Meanwhile for Spider-Man: Homecoming they would say "I like that they cast actual teenagers to play high school kids!". Now these are technically true, these are both things that were improved upon from these films over their predecessors; but they're not actual problems.

Did you honestly watch the original Beauty & The Beast and go "NO! I just can't accept it! There has to be an explanation as to why the servants were cursed as well!". Or when watching any of the other Spider-Man films, regardless if it was one of the good ones or bad ones, was that really the straw that broke the camels back? That none of the other high school kids looked like they were in high school? No. These are nitpicks at best, small problems that we notice and make fun of, but are hardly going to hold against the films. Instead we focus on the things that matter, the visuals, the characters, the music, etc.

However Disney it seems took note on the fact that we like to make fun of these points and decided to base the entire motivation behind these news films around those nitpicks as if they actually mattered. And somehow, people fell for it. They were actually convinced that these were major flaws in the prior films and this is all that matters. Now the Beauty & The Beast remake I admit has a hard time having a purpose in existing, the original is a near flawless film, one of Disney's best, there's almost nothing they can do to improve upon it, so all you can do is emphasise the nitpicks and point out how you're fixing them. Meanwhile forgetting about all the important stuff in a film and letting it falter at the expense. I don't know about you, but I'd say it's more important for a musical to have a lead who can actually sing! Than give a half-arsed explanation onto why the servants got changed. Even then it's a terrible explanation, the witch cursed the Beast only after giving him a chance, none of the servants got a chance, and even then, why are they bad people? Because they didn't stand up to a malicious king. Then spend the rest of the film on auto-pilot where they retell the exact same story note for note...The fact that Disney was able to make a billion dollars just reminding people that they like Beauty & The Beast is quite impressive.

Then with Spider-Man: Homecoming, I already did a post talking about how that film lacked any form of a character arc, stakes in the plot or any form of actual tension. But hey, they cast teenagers! So it's all great! That completely makes up for the lack of even the most basic storytelling functions! Who frigging cares if the characters are played by teenagers when the characters themselves are not interesting!?

I don't want to see this become a recurring thing, where mediocre movies are able to get away with being mediocre through the cinematic equivalent of jingling keys in front of their audiences' face. We deserve better, and you know what? These properties deserve better! Like I said, Beauty & The Beast is one of Disney's all time best, and Spider-Man is one of the greatest fictional characters. They deserve some goddamn effort!

-Danny