The Disneyathon: The Direct to Blog Sequel – Part 4: Beauty and the Beast: Belle’s Magical World

Link to last week’s Part: The Disneyathon: The Direct to Blog Sequel – Part 3: Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas

Link to my Beauty and the Beast (1991) Review: The Disneyathon – Part 11: The Disney Renaissance

This is only the fourth one and already it’s torture!

Beauty and the Beast: Belle’s Magical World isn’t at all magical, because it’s another midquel. Just like the last one, Belle’s Magical World chronicles more tales between the first movie’s events that you really didn’t need to know about, let alone care for. Please take note of the words ‘More Tales‘ because the opening narration of Belle’s Magical World does not inform you that you’re in for three short stories that are strung together regardless of how little they connect to the original Beauty and the Beast. I have extreme pity for the poor saps who thought the central conflict of this movie was Belle and The Beast arguing like bratty children and refusing to own up to their mistakes, all because of a small incident during dinner.

This might be a first for Disney films made up of short stories, but all three shorts in Belle’s Magical World were completely unwatchable for me. They’re essentially 21 minute time wasters that make you feel dead inside. The first short has The Beast and Belle arguing over an open window and the house servants manipulate them into forgiving each other by lying and forging a fake apology letter. It’s not at all decent, but it’s the best out of this lot. In the second one we find out Lumiere has been dating that flirty feather duster for five years now, so he asks Belle for help on how to celebrate it, because he isn’t the relationship type. Sounds boring, so they spice things up with the feather duster spotting Belle and Lumiere together and automatically presuming that Belle is having an affair with a candlestick! The whole plot relies on misunderstandings and contrivances, so this one was obviously hell to watch. The last one features Belle helping out an injured bird, until The Beast finds out and acts like a total arse for the remainder of the short. I hated this one too, mainly because of how they treated The Beast. He’s very unlikable in these shorts and I just wonder why Belle and the other servants even bother to make up with this jerk!

Outside of the story, what I hated most about this sequel is how it screams out: We can’t be arsed. I said in my review for Enchanted Christmas that the animation looked half decent, well they clearly stopped trying when they came to Belle’s Magical World. It looks worse than the two Aladdin sequels combined and it’s full of inconsistencies. This is because the movie also doesn’t mention that what you’re watching are actually episodes made for a failed Beauty and the Beast TV show. I guess I can see the upside of turning it into a movie, making what was otherwise a failure into a profitable venture. The only downside is that movie critics like me are going to rip it to shreds ’til the end time, even going as far as saying it’s the worst sequel Disney ever made.

While writing this review I found out there was a fourth short that wasn’t included in the Disney+ copy that I watched, which apparently focuses on Belle helping out Mrs Potts. If you want to know my thoughts on that, I’m afraid we’ll never know because that sounds like a bloody nightmare forcing myself to seek that out. There are a few things that I liked about Belle’s Magical World, but they’re so minute that I can’t really remember them. The only good thing from this review is there are no more Beauty and the Beast sequels to cover from this point forward, thank Christ!

The Disneyathon: The Direct to Blog Sequel Ranking List

Link to Next Week’s Part: The Disneyathon: The Direct to Blog Sequel – Part 5: Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World