Unlike many of Hollywood's reimaginings of fairy tales, this film is actually decent. One can let children watch this in the same manner our grandparents were reading the original stories. It has morals, it is pretty, actors play well and, most of all, it is not condescendingly stupid. Instead, one can actually enjoy this on almost all levels.
It was funny to see actors Ewan McGregor and Ewen Bremner play in a film together again (Rents and Spud), but they had no real interaction. Nicholas Hoult was OK as the hero of the story and Stanley Tucci, as usual, a great villain. The one that was rather disappointing was the princess, clearly a role that was not really thought out much more than "cute damsel in distress, ready for the rescue". Her father wasn't much either, but at least he had lines. Also, for a movie "made in USA" a great many English actors. Even the story was set in England, as we see in the end.
Bottom line: while not the best movie ever, it was certainly an entertaining blockbuster that retained a lot of the feel and plot of the original fairy tale. It also manages to have an insane body count without actually showing any blood. The US rating system is idiotic for sure. Anyway, the movie was fun. I can recommend it for an easy watch.
