Disney’s 1997 Christmas video release was a direct to video
midquel to Beauty and the Beast.
Starring most of the main voice actors from the original film, plus Paul
Reubens, Bernadette Peters, Tim Curry and Haley Joel Osment, The Enchanted Christmas has not been
very well received.
Set around the Christmas season in the middle of the events
of the first film, Belle (Paige O’Hara) wants to celebrate Christmas. But the
Beast (Robbie Benson) won’t allow it as Christmas was when he was transformed.
Forte (Curry), an organ, and his music have been the only thing keeping the
Beast happy. He wants to remain under the curse as he didn’t have any
significance in the castle before then. He uses his lackey, Fife (Reubens) to
break Belle and the Beast apart.
The only good thing this film has going for it is Tim Curry.
Because no matter what crappy film that man is in (like Ferngully), he’s always able to provide an enjoyable performance.
It’s a shame Disney thought the story of Beauty and the Beast needed to be
continued in some manner. Because here, we have things that didn’t need to be
seen, old characters who get derailed, and new characters that are, mostly,
unlikeable with a plot forced into the events of the first film with all the
gentleness of a speeding locomotive.
Bear in mind, this takes place between Belle running away
and getting attacked by wolves and Beast giving her the library.
For one, as said above, Beast hates Christmas because it was
the night the enchantress transformed him. The first film showed this via
stained glass window. This film outright gives it a fully animated sequence,
thus ruining the beauty and charm of the original telling.
Then there’s our old characters. In the first film,
Cogsworth, Lumiere, and Mrs. Potts had an idea of social norms and that falling
in love takes time. Here, they want to rush everything without any care of how
social graces work. And Belle changes from someone who acts like her life
completely changed (BECAUSE IT DID!!!) to happily loving her life and joyously
giving Beast lessons on ice skating.
And then we have the new characters. Bernadette Peters as
the castle decorator got turned into a Christmas angel. She got locked into a
tower with all the other servants turned Christmas ornaments and pretty much
spends the film telling Belle how celebrating Christmas would be a bad idea,
but helps her anyway. We also have a Jewish axe that spends the majority of his
time in the film kvetching with Jewish humor. But it’s not funny.
The kicker is, I hear this is the better than the other Beauty and the Beast sequels.
#52
No comments:
Post a Comment