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The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Disney) Customer Reviews (1 - 3 of 39 Reviews)

One of the Best Movies of All Time!
"The Hunchback of Notre Dame" is such an incredible movie! The animation is flawless, the music is heart-pounding, and the actors are superior!

Forget all those nasty comments about this movie; those people are probably just trying to give Disney a hard time. I own this movie, and I can honestly tell you that it's worth watching. It ranks among my all-time favorites! Clopin is my absolute favorite animated Disney character, and Frollo is my absolute favorite Disney villain.

Aside from being a terrific movie, this film also teaches important life lessons, such as how you shouldn't judge people by their outward appearance, and how you should learn to rely on God in difficult times.

People complain that this movie is too dark for little kids. My youngest sister is a little kid, and she loves this movie almost as much as I do. So if you haven't seen the video yet, you don't know what you're missing!

Should have been PG 13
I saw this movie and was shocked at the contents, considering that it was aimed at children. It starts out with the gypsy Esmeralda doing a very provocative stripper style pole dance. While no stripping happened, there wasn't much other difference in the style of dance. Later in the movie, one of the men is obsessing over her in a manner I would never want my children to see. He sings a song about how she will burn in hell if he doesn't have her, and meanwhile a vision of her provocative dancing is playing out in the flames of a fire. Regardless of the rest of the movie, these two scenes make this highly innapropriate for children. Not to mention that the story is very untrue to the novel, which had a tragic ending rather than a happy ever after one.

Decent but lacks a sense of wonder.
Whenever you think of Disney films, you typically think of cutesy, happy-go-lucky 80 minute comedy musicals with pop culture jokes to appeal to adults and a sappy ending to make the kids happy, but Disney's The Hunchback Of Notre Dame is quite different from that. It's surprisingly a much more darker and more serious film than Disney's usual cartoons. Although none of it is ever graphic, there is a surprising amount of on-screen deaths for a G rated Disney cartoon. The movie also deals with several adult subjects like racism, persucution, and even religion. The film is mostly serious but there are some comical moments performed by Quasimodo's gargoyle friends. Unfortunately, as funny as the gargoyles are, none of them were really all that memorable and I actually find myself having trouble remembering any of their names and while they did have their laughable moments, there were also times were I felt like their presence felt intrusive, especially in the later more dramatic moments of the story. I didn't like how they had the gargoyles help fend off the soldiers near the end of the film, either. What made the gargoyles tolerable is that they were kept seperate from the rest of the "real world" of the story and were only used when Quasimodo was alone, as part of his imagination. By having them fight the soldiers, it feels like Disney is trying to mesh the realisim of the story with the fantasy elements, which works fine with most of their other films, but feels really out of place in this more serious movie. It's like Disney wants to push the G rating as much as possible, but they aren't brave enough to truly make this a dark film, so they had the gargoyles included to lighten things up for the kiddies. Perhaps if this movie was rated PG instead, Disney would've been more free to explore the darker sides of this story and the gargoyles could've been used a lot less.

Aside from Qausimodo, most of the other characters feel very Disney stereotypical. Esmeralda is your average spunky Disney heroine, Phoebus is the typical dashing Disney hero with a big head who falls in love with the heroine, and Frollo is Scar from The Lion King in human form. Despite a rather small cast of characters compared to Disney's other films, very little development is given to any of them aside from Qausimodo. I couldn't really connect with any of the other supporting characters because not enough time was spent developing them and it didn't help that most of their personalities are Disney stereotypes. The Hunchback Of Notre Dame also lacks that magical sense of wonder that other Disney movies have. The storyline is entertaining but you just don't really feel drawn into it.

The Hunchback Of Notre Dame does have some gorgeous animation, though. I loved the detail designs of the churches and this film has some of Disney's most stunning animation, easily rivaling any of their classics in the visuals department. The background music is beautiful as well, but other than "Out There" and "Hellfire", most of their songs are pretty forgettable, and even those two noteable tunes get rather old after a while. Don't get me wrong; The Hunchback Of Notre Dame is far from being a bad film and I enjoyed it a lot. I loved how Disney attempted to show a darker side for a change, Qausimodo is one of their more likeable heroes and one that anybody who's been a social outcast can easily relate to, and the animation is gorgeous, but the film just doesn't connect to the viewer and some of the comedy scenes felt very out of place. Still, older viewers who think they're too grown up for Disney's more childish movies but still love animation will enjoy this film, and diehard Disney fans will want to add this movie into their collection, but casual moviegoers should pass this up and stick to something like Beauty And The Beast instead, and most of this film will probably be uninteresting to younger viewers due to its lack of magical fuzzy creatures and its more serious undertones.

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