Well that was a nostalgia bomb I haven't felt since...well, since The Force Awakens. I loved it. However, I don't think I would have loved it as much if I hadn't grown up with the animated film. I can understand why some didn't like this one because it really did follow the original beat by beat, maybe a little too closely. There wasn't much that wasn't carried over besides the "Gaston" reprise.
I thought the cast all did a great job. I liked Emma Watson, and I thought she turned in a solid performance, but I actually thought she was the weakest of the main cast. Dan Stevens nailed it, so much so that the shoddy CGI in some scenes didn't phase me because he turned in a great performance. Luke Evans made for a sinister Gaston. Josh Gad was brilliant as LeFou. So too was Kevin Kline as Maurice. All the actors playing the objects were great as well. I loved Ian McKellen's Cogsworth especially. Evan McGregor really brought Lumiere to life as well, questionable accent aside. It's like Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins where the accent isn't great but it doesn't matter because he's giving it his all. Speaking of which, Emma Thompson could have toned down the cockney accent too but I still liked her as Mrs. Potts. Plumette, Cadenza and the Wardrobe were more fleshed out than in the animated film (in the case of Cadenza, he was brand new) and Gugu

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, Stanley Tucci and Audra McDonald all were wonderful. A solid cast in general.
The songs and how they were staged ranged from great to okay. I thought "Be Our Guest" worked the best here, but I may be biased because it's my favorite from the original. The best of the new songs was definitely "Evermore". I even enjoyed that more than "If I Can't Love Her" from the Broadway show, not the least of which for occurring at a point in the story where it makes more sense for the Beast to have an emotional ballad. As for Emma Watson, I didn't think she sounded bad, but autotune was obvious in more than a few places. She sounded strongest in "How Does A Moment Last Forever?"
My major gripes with the film were that for one, the Beast should have had more screentime in the first half. It really should have been him to let Belle out of the dungeon instead of Lumiere (even though it was Lumiere's idea in the original). I was also disappointed that the ballroom sequence was kinda meh compared to the original film.
That being said, there were a few things that this film did better than the animated film. The characters of LeFou, Maurice and Plumette were much stronger here, and as I said before, "Evermore" was really quite effective for the Beast's character.
The scene that made me realize I did love the film was the scene where the objects became inanimate as the Beast died. Just seeing the despair of these characters combined with the heart wrenching score from Alan Menken made me tear up, out of nostalgia as well. That was such a brilliant and sad moment.