Tuesday, October 04, 2005

The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Disney) - Ray's Review

The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)
91 min

Directed by:
Gary Trousdale & Kirk Wise (Beauty and the Beast)

Based on the book by:
Victor Hugo

Starring the Voices of:
Tom Hulce as Quasimodo
Demi Moore as Esmeralda
Tony Jay as Frollo
Kevin Kline as Phoebus

Plot Synopsis from Amazon.com:

"Quasimodo, the ward of repressive monk Frollo, falls for a gypsy girl named Esmerelda (Demi Moore)--though she loves one of the king's guards (Kevin Kline). But they are all put in jeopardy by the wicked Frollo, whose secret passion for Esmerelda leads him to seek her death."

Ray's Opinion:

Until now, I never bothered seeing The Hunchback of Notre Dame. It looked too similar to Beauty and the Beast (which is no surprise considering the same directing team are behind it), a film which is widely loved by the public, but not by me - I usually prefer my Disney films with less romance.

After re-watching and thoroughly enjoying many animated films in the past few weeks, I have been on a search to discover other animated films I may have missed. After checking out several positive reviews I decided to give Hunchback a shot - "Who knows?" I thought, "Maybe I'll like it?". I was surprised to find a deceptively dark and personal tale, about a troubled youth who feels like an outsider (sounds like someone I know), and finding the strength to see beyond simple preconceptions of others.

What I most liked about Hunchback - other than the gorgeous animation and sound - was how insular the story was. A lot of the film is set at the top of the Church, where Quasimodo lives in isolation, and I just loved spending time there (I guess I'm a sucker for lonely guy tales). It actually reminded me of the scenes in Blade Runner where Deckard is out on his balcony, sipping a whisky and watching the world roll by below him. Any film that reminds me of Blade Runner is doing well for itself!

I was impressed by how dark Disney went and was even vaguely disturbed in places, particularly by Frollo's awesome song "Hellfire" - a song, essentially about his repressed lust towards Esmeralda (hardly the usual theme of Disney songs). It's an incredibly well staged number and has to be one of the most intense - if not the most intense - Disney song of all time.

Regarding my worries that Hunchback would be too similar to Beauty and the Beast... I need not have worried, Hunchback is far less romanticised and has a much stronger female lead. Unlike Dreamwork's Sinbad - where they tried desperately to make their heroine sassy and strong willed - Esmeralda is genuinely strong and Demi's voicework is surprisingly good.

I'm not going to rant on about the melding of computer graphics and traditional animation (I've done that in every other animated film review here), but I will say that, once again, Disney have produced an amazing looking (and sounding) film that will show off your home cinema nicely.

Disney's Quasimodo is another character that could only ever be realised with animation. Much like Tarzan, he moves around with an acrobatic skill that no real human possesses and which would be extremely difficult to accomplish in a live action film, even with the aid of CG. I loved watching him get around and actually wished there were more scenes of his acrobatic prowess (another "bell ringing" scene would have been nice).

On the negative side, I did not like the stone gargoyles much and I think they were unnecessary. None of their jokes clicked. I can understand the necessity of them for the kiddies, but it's still no excuse for how weak the writing was for them. When sidekicks are an organic result of story development they work well - such as the monkey in Aladdin - but when they have been "inserted" you can tell. Also, I would have loved to have seen more room for Kevin Kline to have fun with his character Phoebus - Kevin Kline did hilarious voice work in The Road to El Dorado, but he had very little to do here in Hunchback (but I'll take what I can get). Often in animation the antagonist can seem uninspired and simplistically evil, but I found Frollo genuinely intimidating, and I think his repressed lust towards Esmeralda made him unique among Disney's fiendish characters.

I was surprised to find myself absorbed from start to finish. It's darker than most Disney films, has strong central characters and looks beautiful (does the camera ever stop moving?). Basically, The Hunchback of Notre Dame was better than I ever thought it would be and I'm glad I discovered it after all this time! I will definitely watch it again, sometime in the near future.

8/10

Check out my other animated film reviews:

Atlantis: The Lost Empire/Treasure Planet

Tarzan

The Prince of Egypt

The Road to El Dorado

Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas

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