you know every Christmas I try to review
a good Disney Christmas movie well you
know what I'm sick of it this Christmas
I want to review crap uh this looks good
Beauty and the Beast the enchanted
Christmas this is one of the earlier
Disney sequels that was coming out like
maybe the six or seven god it's sad to
think that number is actually early this
must have been really popular because
they even rereleased it with a special
edition yeah I guess this got a bit of a
fanbase I guess to its credit it's not
the worst I mean there's definitely a
lot more bad Disney sequels out there
but yeah it's still not back yeah okay
well it takes place once again Once Upon
a Time except this time Belle and her
prints are talking about who brought
Christmas back to the palace so we flash
back to when Belle was still a prisoner
of the Beast he's still pretty kind to
her in terms of letting her roam through
the castle and everything but he has
this hatred of Christmas one of the
reasons being I guess they are all
transformed on Christmas huh what a
coincidence and they even come across
this Christmas ornament played by
Bernadette Peters who hates Christmas as
well because she hates what a reminder
it is of all the misery that it's
brought but of course Belle wants to
bring Christmas to the castle by going
out and getting a tree and celebrating
the holiday but little do both her and
the Beast know that they're actually
being manipulated by this evil organ
play by Tim Curry oh yeah
now things get good Tim Curry is the
villain in this and he doesn't really
attack or throw anything at beef oh well
not till the end but we'll get to that
he just uses his manipulation to keep
the beast shut off from everybody so he
can do nothing but play music for I
guess on the whole there are a few good
ideas here most of them being around Tim
Curry the design of this organ is
amazing he's all CG but he looks
incredible this is something that
clearly should be CG the film also looks
very nice well okay it's pretty
impressive for the animation that they
had at the time this was before they
just abandoned their film animation
threw it all into their DVDs but this
was kind of a nice half way it wasn't as
lame looking as return of Jafar but it
wasn't as good-looking as a Mulan to
beast
have some nice winter environments they
know how to shoot the snow they know how
to get some good colors in there
and I guess if someone was forced to do
a Christmas beauty and the beast'
special this is not the worst story you
could put to it I kind of like the idea
of keeping the beast away from everybody
and the organ is kind of being like this
addiction trying to keep him in his
loneliness in fact he actually kind of
likes his new form and he wants to stay
in that new form isn't that fascinating
but aside from that it's not much Belle
goes from being a really interesting
character to just always kind of being
happy and smiling and optimistic a
little too much he becomes a little too
bland it's nice hearing Bernadette
Peters sing but he'll anytime she sings
it's amazing one of the problems though
is that the songs are very half-assed
that is to say I'm sure someone worked
very hard on them but all of them sound
like melodies that just weren't given
enough time to really blue they're all
kind of searching for a sound or
searching to be the next be prepared or
Beauty and the Beast love song and yeah
they just sort of sound like cheap
imitations they weren't given enough
time to be those songs there's also this
completely pointless climax where it
looks like everything is gonna end but
out of nowhere the organ decides no I'm
gonna stop everybody I'm gonna destroy
the castle and oh what the hell are you
doing
I give a credit that it could have been
a lot more half-assed you get a feeling
that the people working on this are kind
of shrugging like okay well if we have
to do this let's try to put something
decent together but with an idea this
strange in this forest it's really hard
to turn out anything that's spectacular
especially after this was such a
spectacular movie with the original it's
a pretty damn tough follow-up
I guess I'd say if you're very forgiving
of story and characters and you're just
kind of looking for some basic Christmas
visuals that aren't spectacular but are
good
this is harmless but yeah coming off the
heels of the only enemy film at the time
that was nominated for Best Picture
you'd probably expect something a little
better than this but then again it's a
direct-to-dvd Christmas special what can
you expect I wasn't impressed but I
wasn't horrified either there's plenty
of stupid moments but there's some okay
moments as well in my opinion there
so many Christmas specials out there
that do this kind of stuff so much
better that it's definitely worth
looking at those instead if you got the
nostalgia factor fair enough go ahead
and watch it it's not gonna injure you
any and hey this is what gets you in the
holiday spirit Who am I to judge Merry
Christmas
and I'll see you through the rest of
December
you