(The Disneycember logo is shown, before showing a poster for The Muppet Christmas Carol. The song "The Twelve Days of Christmas" plays throughout)
Doug (vo): You know, every Christmas, I try to review a good Disney Christmas movie. Well, you know what? I'm sick of it. (A picture of Nostalgia Critic, looking very irritated, is shown) This Christmas, I want to review crap.
(Posters for I'll Be Home for Christmas, Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas and The Search for Santa Paws are shown rapidly, before stopping at Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas and showing clips and stills from the movie)
Doug (vo): 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 sixth or seventh. God, it's bad to think that number is actually early. This must've been very popular, 'cause they even re-released 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... (sighs) Yeah, it's still not...that...uh...
Story
Doug (vo): Okay. Well, it takes place, once again, once upon a time. Except this time, Belle and her prince 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 were all transformed on Christmas. (Speaks sarcastically) Huh, what a coincidence. (Speaks normally) 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, played 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 people...well, not until 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 him.
- Actually, the servants discuss it and the story is told by Mrs. Potts (the Teapot). Belle and the Prince don't appear until the epilogue.
Review
Doug (vo): 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 and threw it all into their DVDs. But this was kind of a nice halfway. It wasn't as lame-looking as Return of Jafar, but it wasn't as good-looking as, say, Mulan 2. They still 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?
(Various clips and stills continue to show)
Doug (vo): 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, becomes a little more too bland. It's nice hearing Bernadette Peters sing, but...hell, any time 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 bloom. 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 that weren't given enough time to be those songs.
(Scenes of the film's climax are shown)
Doug (vo): There's also this big 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!" Oh, what the hell are you doing?
Final thought
Doug (vo): I give it credit that it could've 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 and this forced, it's really hard to turn out anything that 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 animated 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's 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, if 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.
(A scene showing the Beast learning to skate with Belle is shown)