Belle's Magical World

Disney has now made straight-to-video sequels to a good bunch of their many animated features. Two of these were made for their 1991 classic, "Beauty and the Beast". Well, these ones aren't really sequels, as they are both set in between the events of the first film. The first of these two straight-to-video films was "Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas", which seems to be disliked by quite a few fans of its theatrical predecessor, but I think that can usually be expected with sequels. However, this second one, "Belle's Magical World", is definitely inferior.

The film features three short stories, all of which take place while Belle is in the castle, and the place is under the spell of the enchantress. The first is "The Perfect Word", where a misunderstanding at the table between Belle and the Beast leads to trouble, and neither wants to be the first to apologize. The next story is "Fifi's Folly", where Fifi and Lumiere's fifth anniversary is coming up, and Lumiere is unprepared, so Belle helps him. However, Fifi sees Lumiere practicing romance with Belle, and thinks they're actually in love. The film ends with "The Broken Wing". In this story, Belle takes care of a bird with a broken wing, but a bird in the castle will probably mean trouble if the Beast finds out, as he hates birds!

The plot description I gave is for the original VHS version of Disney's third "Beauty and the Beast" movie. Apparently, in the DVD version, there is another story added called "Mrs. Potts's Party", but I've only seen the original version. However, since I highly doubt that one story would stand out as a classic over the rest, I see no point in watching the special edition. Anyway, the first thing I will say about "Belle's Magical World" is that the animation is very 2-dimensional compared to what we're used to from Disney, which would obviously disappoint many people. I didn't like "Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas" that much, but you certainly can't say the same about its animation. I'm sure the stories in "Belle's Magical World" could entertain many kids (mostly younger ones, I think), and each story has a moral, so they could also teach them some valuable lessons. However, for adults, the film really doesn't have a lot. I personally didn't find any good humour in it, found that the constant conflict between Belle and the Beast got tiring, and the stories did not impress me too much at all in any way (they're not very well written). In "The Perfect Word", the way Belle says to the Beast, "You're acting rude... and foolish!" is a bit cheesy, and I think there are quite a few other cheesy moments in these stories.

By the time this straight-to-video movie first came out, I was around eleven or twelve years old. I don't know what I would have thought of it at the time, as I had lost interest in Disney by then, and it would be years before I would gain any of that interest back. Even when this movie was first released, I think I was a bit past the age group it was aimed at. I never saw "Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas" until a couple months ago, but unlike that film, I never even heard of this one until recently, I think just after seeing the first sequel to Disney's 1991 hit. Well, as much as I like the theatrical original, I wouldn't have been missing much if I never became aware of this film's existence. For little kids, I'm sure "Belle's Magical World" can be highly entertaining, and probably somewhat educational with its morals, but I do not recommend it for adult Disney fans.

Uninteresting plots, bad dialogue, forgettable songs, and ugly animation. It's not only the worst direct to video Disney sequel, but also one of the worst Disney movies overall.

This movie was probably one of the worst I've ever seen. I kept watching out of sheer morbid curiosity. The plots were bad. The animation was bad. The songs were bad. There were some places that the animation was so bad that I literally laughed out loud. It's boring as snot otherwise. If you had any respect for any of the characters before it goes out the window completely with this movie. The beast is a GIANT violent control freak and Belle always blames herself for stuff that's not her fault. The only reason anyone would ever want to watch this more than once besides masochism would be if they wanted to remember their parents domestic abuse toward each other as some kind of dismal nostalgia.

Having just rewatched the original film, this straight to video sequel (of sorts) is a jarring plummet in quality. Despite a largely returning voice cast, the animation is terrible, and the stories are worse.

Setting itself as a midquel, the film consists of three stories that take place during the time that Belle (Paige O'Hara) is becoming friends with the Beast (Robby Benson) but before Gaston's assault on the castle. In the first, Belle and the Beast fall out, and an attempt by the staff to reconcile them only makes it worse. In the second, on their anniversary, Fifi (Kimmy Robertson) comes to believe that Lumiere (Jerry Orbach) has eyes for Belle, rather than her. Finally, an injured bird teaches the Beast about forgiveness and letting go of the things he loves.

There is apparently a fourth story on certain DVD releases, but the Disney plus version only has these three that made up the phenomenally successful VHS release in the aftermath of the beloved originals success. As became a frequent feature of these sequels, it's actually three episodes of a failed spin-off show crudely pasted together and passed off as a film. They didn't even have the grace to animate some new wraparound bits this time.

Despite the return of Paige O'Hara and Robby Benson, and Jerry Orbach and David Ogden Stiers Belle's Magical World is up there (... down there?) as one of the worst, cheapest looking and most boring garbage fires that I've seen on this alphabetical run through Disney Plus. The stories are nonsensical, and the characters feel inconsistent with the ones we met in the actual film.

It's sad that the success of this video encourages Disney into a decade long cycle of cheap, lazy sequels rather than either maintaining the sanctity of their classics, or producing proper returns to their magical worlds.

The original is a masterpiece, and The Enchanted Christmas is actually not that bad at all. This film is alright, but a lot of the animation is shoddy, and the songs are instantly forgettable. At least Enchanted Christmas did more than adequately in those two aspects. The storyline was merely a series of vignettes, like the sequel to Cinderella. If I had a preference to which I prefer, storyline-wise, this one raises the bar. Lumiere (though less elegant and debonair) and Cogsworth are funny here thanks to the brilliant voice overs of Jerry Orbach and David Ogden Stiers, but why was Belle changed? She did very little, other than preach to the characters. As for Mrs Potts, the reason why she was ruined, was because Angela Lansbury didn't voice her. The stories are okay with nice ideas, with a bit of humour from Lumiere particularly, but the essence of the original was lost. The best was "Fifi's Folly" but all three stories had problems of their own. The message was laid on way too thick, and in general the writing was uninspiring. And there were some bits about Beast's character that was unnecessary, like him hating birds. I can swear that wasn't mentioned in the original! Though I will admit that the bird was really cute. I will give this a 6/10, in respect to the voice actors. Bethany Cox.