Animation Celebration Saturday - Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas

Disney, 1997
Starring Paige O'Hara, Robby Benson, Tim Curry, and Bernadette Peters
Directed by Andy Knight
Music by Rachel Portman; Lyrics by Don Black

Yes, this is why I didn't review this follow-up to the massively popular Beauty and the Beast as a double-feature with the original, like I did with Pocahontas and The Little Mermaid.  I couldn't resist saving it for closer to the holiday. If there was ever a Disney movie that was a tough act to follow, Beauty is it. It was one of the biggest hit movies of the early 90's, and is one of three animated movies to date to be nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. How does the first sequel compare? Let's return to the castle of the Beast, this time in late December, and find out...

The Story: The bulk of this one is set during Belle's (O'Hara) time at the castle, when she and the Beast (Benson) were just starting to warm up to each other. The Beast is set against anyone celebrating Christmas. Belle thinks otherwise. Christmas is just the thing that the residents of the castle need to give them hope. What she doesn't know is that the Beast was transformed into a monster on Christmas Eve, and it understandably soured him on the holiday. She's determined to celebrate anyway, whether he likes it or not.

Meanwhile, Forte (Curry), a dour organ, is equally determined to keep his hold on the Beast. He'd rather remain an object and have the Beast notice him and his dull and dark songs than be ignored again. He convinces a piccolo (Paul Reubens) to first sabotage their efforts to cheer up the Beast, then snitch when Belle leaves the castle to get a tree. Not to mention, the castle decorator, Angelique (Peters), thinks they'll all just be disappointed again. It takes a gift from Belle to show the Beast what hope is really all about and convince him to rethink his stance on the holiday season.

The Animation: A real mixed bag. Some of it isn't bad for a direct-to-DVD feature. More effort was put into this than Little Mermaid II or Pocahontas II, especially the first version of "As Long as There's Christmas," with the objects stacked via computer effects to resemble a tree. Most of the other CGI effects look as cheap as they likely are. Doing Forte entirely in CGI hasn't dated well at all. It looks obvious and clashes badly with the hand-drawn animation in most of the remainder of the film.

The Song and Dance: There's more to enjoy here than you might think. Not only did they bring back most of the original cast of the first movie, but we also have Peters (who gets to sing a nice duet on "As Long as There's Christmas" with O'Hara) and Curry, the later digging into his role as the selfish organ with relish. Jeff Bennett gets some funny moments as a Yiddish ax who chops wood to heat the castle.

Favorite Number: While the two versions of "As Long as It's Christmas" are lovely, my favorite song from this one is "Stories." Belle sings this salute to the adventures a good story can take us on to Chip as she writes and illustrates a book for the Beast. Not only is the animation depicting the book as she creates it gorgeous (and pretty accurate to many fairy-tale anthologies), but as a fellow book-lover and writer, the message of the song really hits a deep chord with me.

What I Don't Like: Unfortunately, like Little Mermaid, this is pretty much a rehash of the first film with a weaker villain. Curry's performance does make Forte a cut above Morgana from Mermaid, but he still can't compare to Gaston and his outrageously over-the-top masculinity. Other than the "Christmas" duet, Peters is barely in the movie. Bennett's ax has some good lines, but he's also a bit of a Jewish stereotype and may annoy some folks and offend others. Other than "Christmas" and "Stories," the music is dull and flat; Curry's "Don't Fall In Love" is especially disappointing.

The Big Finale: For all it's problems, I will admit this has become a guilty pleasure of mine since I picked it up on DVD about a decade ago. It's definitely one of the better direct-to-home-media Disney movies of the 90's and early 2000's. If you have fans of Beauty and the Beast around or are looking for a fun movie to show your elementary-school-age kids during Christmas break, you can do a lot worse than this. (It's a bit dark for really the really young guys.)

Home Media: It looks like the Blu-Ray/DVD combo is out of print at press time; your best bet here may be the rather nice DVD set or streaming services like Amazon Prime.

DVD
Amazon Prime (buy only)