In the humble opinion of this amateur film critic, the original Beauty and the Beast (1991) is one of Disney’s best and, depending on what day you ask, may actually be their best. It is wonderfully animated with great songs, great performances, and a narrative that is a ‘tale as old as time’. It is a classic. Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas (1997) is none of those things. I don’t say this with any kind of disappointment or disgust, it just so happens to be true. The film tells the story of Christmas time in the enchanted castle while the Beast and Belle are still learning to love each other. However, one of the servants of the castle, an organ by the name of Forte (Tim Curry), wants to put an end to this as he believes the Beast falling in love with Belle will render his services redundant. And so, he sets up a plot to make the Beast believe Belle is attempting to undermine and betray him.
First of all, we might as well mention the few good things about this film. First of all, the whole original voice cast return to their roles for the film. This instantly gives the film much more credibility. And, for the most part, all the voice actors do a good job with what they are given to work with. I say for the most part because it doesn’t always work, but I will get to that later. And literally, the only other good thing about this film is Tim Curry and the character of Forte. The character himself is a fun idea, while also being brilliantly designed and genuinely quite intimidating as a villain. And Tim Curry obviously does a great job in the role. He is both menacing and comedic which gives the character a decent amount of depth and he is easily the most interesting aspect of the film. That’s it. That is the end of the good stuff.
So, you may be wondering who I am talking about when saying that some of the returning cast don’t do a great job. Well, I am actually talking about the titular Beauty and Beast, played by Paige O’Hara and Robby Benson respectively. While neither actually do a terrible job in an objective perspective, as in they capture the emotions of the characters decently well, but there always feels like there is something off with them. This is much more apparent with the Beast than it is with Belle, with that performance being all over the place. And while I think the performances are partially to blame, it also has to be said that the terrible script and unsettling animation does not help. The animation for the servant characters is fine, but anytime the film has to animate its humanoid characters it is just so off. The movements are weird, and the facial expressions are frankly terrifying, which again is only amplified by the decision to have several extreme close-ups where these characters stare directly down the centre of the frame and into the very depths of your soul. The film also does this weird thing where the majority of it is traditional hand-drawn animation, but the Tim Curry character is CGI. It just adds to this uncanny valley nature of the film and has such a clash of styles in the film. Oh, and the songs of the film are pretty bland and forgettable.
This film is bad and completely unneeded, but it is not close to being as bad as the worst of the films I have seen this month. However, what it is is pretty forgettable. Other than some terrifying shots I will have forgotten about this by the time I wake up tomorrow. For that reason, it may very well be an alright film to throw in for really little kids if you just need an hour this Christmas, but you could also put on something much better and not subject your kids to the terror that is doughy eyed Belle staring you down.
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