Belle’s Magical World: Parent Review

Dad's Take

My first take away is if I ever need a contract, I want Angela Lansbury’s lawyer or agent or whoever worked out her original contract for Beauty and the Beast so that she didn’t have to appear in this warmed over pile of dog crap. There was virtually nothing redeeming about this monstrosity. It’s literally an hour and a half of pure torture – brought to you for free with your Disney Plus subscription!

The characters are terrible. The morals are OK and geared towards kids but are mostly lost in some of the other terrible messages in the straight to DVD installment. The stories are boring and feel forced. 

Then there’s the animation. The original Beauty and the Beast has amazing animation that still holds up over twenty years later as some of the best ever made. Belle’s Magical World, on the other hand, looks like the unpaid interns drew it in between coffee runs. All the characters look slightly off,  like Disney had their interns copy its own work as a practical joke gone bad. Very bad.

Oddly enough, most of the voice cast (who didn’t have Angela’s agent) returned with some new inanimate object faces. But even with the original voices returning, they all sounded slightly off, like the voice actors just sort of gave up on it. And I can’t say I blame them.

Beast crosses the line from being an arrogant, slightly mean person portrayed in the movie to being, well, a dick. Many of his lines towards Belle and the other characters are emotionally abusive or over the top cruel. For example, in the first short story, he literally banishes three of the new characters because they – wait for it – FORGED an apology letter from him to Belle. 

What’s worse then the Beast’s overall temperament is how the message that basically says no matter how terrible a person treats you, if they apologize, it’s all good. Sure, you can teach forgiveness, but there is a fine line between forgiving and being someone’s door mat. And the Beast crosses that line.

Disney used Belle’s Magical World to introduce new characters, like the mostly useless chandelier that hangs over the area where the Beast and Belle have their meals. They also introduced a dictionary, named Webster (I can’t make that crap up), a pen, a pad of paper, and a random silver tub. Not surprisingly, the new characters were not very memorable, except maybe the pad of paper.

But the only reason the pad of paper sticks out is because when he is written on, a page is removed, you know, from his body. So when the curse was broken, did that dude having missing limbs? Patches of skin removed? How deformed was he when he became human again? I demand answers Disney.

Sadly, the other familiar faces were also pretty terrible. Lumiere’s story about his love and plans for a 5th anniversary celebration with Fifi, the slutty maid depicted briefly in Beauty and the Beast, made me cringe. The gist is, they have dated for 5 years and Lumiere is planning a surprise date for her. In the meantime, she thinks that he’s hitting on Belle like the man whore he is, so Fifi spends the story misunderstanding and ultimately sabotaging the date. 

Some how that episode ends with them almost falling off a cliff because of cartoon physics. And that’s where they both first declare their love for each other. Yes, the first time in 5 years they said “I love you.”

The take away: Men can never commit to their feelings, but hang in there ladies because a near death experience may be enough to get him to stop treating you like a booty call. Girl, please. If he hasn’t been able to say he loves you after 5 years of dating, its probably time to move on or accept you’re both in it for casual sex.

Moving on, we also learn Cogsworth is a real prick. He’s almost as bad as the Beast. He’s one dimensional, not funny, and not interesting.

Then there’s Mrs. Potts. She knows what’s up and basically calls out Lumiere for being a man whore. She also directly says she would not have man trouble if she was Fifi… this from a pot that confirmed that Chip actually does have several brothers. How many kids did she crank out? And what happened to all the kids when the curse was removed? It was bad enough that she mentions the other kids in Beauty and the Beast, but this load of crap that they sold as a movie flat out confirmed she multiplied like a rabbit.

If you watch this with the kids, make sure you go prepared. If you have “Mommy juice,” you gotta fill up your cup up. If you have ear plugs, it is time to use them. Even better, get out the noise cancelling head phones and watch a movie on your phone. Of course you don’t need these things. You could always sit there in a dull stupor contemplating all the mistakes you made to reach this new low point as you endure Belle’s Magical World.

Trust me. It’s not that magical.