Movie Info
Movie Name: The Hunchback of Notre Dame II
Studio: Walt Disney Animation Japan
Genre(s): Animated/Musical/Family
Release Date(s): March 19, 2002
MPAA Rating: G
I’m just happy I can still smile after an hour of bad animation…
Quasimodo is now accepted among the Parisians but still longs for love. With Le Jour d’Amour approaching, Phoebus, Esmeralda, and their son Zephyr encourage Quasimodo to take a chance with a young woman named Madellaine from a traveling circus who shows interest in him. Unfortunately, Madellaine is secretly being forced to work for the circus leader Sarousch who wants to steal Notre Dame’s prized bell La Fidèle. Quasimodo finds himself falling in love with Madellaine but is unaware that her actions might not be pure.
Directed by Bradley Raymond, The Hunchback of Notre Dame II is a straight-to-video follow-up to Disney’s 1996 animated feature. Though the movie featured the return of nearly all the voice actors, the movie was met with largely negative reviews. It frequently can be found packaged with the original film.
All the sudden we’ve entered Brazil
The Hunchback of Notre Dame was a good looking film that didn’t quite live up to the great novel by Victor Hugo. The much more optimistic ending of the movie allowed almost all the main characters to survive and return for this film. The voice work of Tom Hulce, Demi Moore, Kevin Kline, Haley Joel Osment, Jennifer Love Hewitt, and Jason Alexander is about the only positive aspect of this story.
The movie is short, and I’m thankful for that. The runtime is just over an hour, but it feels much longer. The story for the film is cliché and tired with the story arc being extremely predictable (I wonder Madellaine’s desire for tightrope walking could factor in to the ending sequence…could be?!?!) The movie just feels extremely small scale and that is totally opposite of the original film and most of what Disney stands for.
I didn’t really like the gargoyles before…now they have crappy animation
In addition to a weak story, The Hunchback of Notre Dame II has horrible animation. The movie was animated by Walt Disney Animation Japan and looks extremely cheap. If you didn’t recognize the character designs from the first movie and the voices, you might suspect that this movie is a knock off of Disney’s film. Disney IS animation and to have a cheap version of their animation is not fair to their audience…even their afternoon TV shows look better than this.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame II is a weak entry to what many consider a weak film for Disney in the ’90s. I don’t hate the original Hunchback of Notre Dame (it isn’t their best film), but I do kind of hate this movie for taking any joy out of the previous entry and dumbing it down even more. Thankfully, Disney ended their sequels to The Hunchback of Notre Dame with this movie, and I don’t see them starting again.
[easyazon-block align=”center” asin=”B00AO686E2″ locale=”us”]
Related Links:
