Stometer Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Bob This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Geraldine The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Brooklynn There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

classicsoncall One obviously has to overlook Disney's lack of conformity to the Victor Hugo novel in the retelling of this tale about the Hunchback of Notre Dame. But the basics are there, put in animated form to make it more appealing to a younger viewing audience. I guess I would question whether this would have been a suitable subject for a Disney project but it appears to work for the most part. The principal message of course is to not judge a person based on appearances but for their inherent humanity and principled character. Unlike a lot of viewers on this board, I didn't mind the introduction of the gargoyle characters as they added an element of humor and whimsy to the story. What would a Disney animated feature be without it? Of the theatrical versions of the Hunchback, I'd cite the 1939 film with Charles Laughton and Maureen O'Hara as the best adaptation, although the 1923 silent film with Lon Chaney does have it's merits. In the animated version here, one doesn't experience the everyday squalor of Parisian city life that forms the backdrop of Quasimodo's quest for dignity, and how he found solace in the ringing of the church bells. But then again, younger viewers probably aren't ready for that kind of a message, and the one they get with this film might be considered a good stepping stone to experience the earlier dramatic versions.

Hermione Granger I watched this for the first time today, hoping that I'd enjoy it even though I'd heard bad things about it, just like I did with Pocahontas. I was disappointed. Here's what I thought about what:Story: The plot was strange, and I was annoyed with the great amount of things that were left out from the original book. On the other hand, I was getting goosebumps and chills when Esmeralda was about to be burned. The battle was no joke; though there was no blood, it had fire and spears. It was captivating and exciting. With the incredible battle but how the plot had little connections to the book, I give the story 5/10 stars.Characters: Quasimodo and Esmeralda were great characters, and Frollo is one of the best and most wicked of Disney's villains. He had a cold voice and grand song, but it was sometimes hard to tell what he thought or whose side he was on. I didn't care for the rest of the characters. Again, there weren't connections with the book! Captain Phoebus was a good person, not sly and betraying as he was in the book. Esmeralda's mother and a poet that fell in love with Esmeralda were left out. There were talking gargoyles, which were new and unnecessary. The narrator was actually a character, a rather obnoxious one at that. With the missing and new characters, as well as how some changed, I give them 3/10 stars.Music and singing: Frollo's song, Hellfire, is honestly one of the best Disney villain songs ever. It was thrilling and had so much drama and even beauty to it. The French chorus in the background made it even better. "God Help the Outcasts" and "Out There" were good as well, but there was another song that the gargoyles sang that only made the story dwindle and was, again, completely unnecessary. 7/10 stars for the music and singing.Art and animation: Some of the poorest I've ever seen! The animated movie that came before this was Pocahontas, and it was gorgeous with all its colors and shadowing. This, on the other hand, was poor. Though there were amazing details, the colors were dull and shadowing sloppy. 1/10 stars for the art and animation!Humor: Pretty good, but there was very little. If your child is watching this, then they probably won't get the jokes, for with the little humor there was, it is more adult-like humor. 5/10 for humor.Acting and voices: The acting was well-done, but Esmeralda's voice was too high-pitched and obnoxious. Also, the narrator was annoying. 4/10 stars for acting and voices.So, in the end, though this has a few great songs and incredible action, the animation and story, as well as the alterations and disconnection with the book, ruined it. The average number of stars is 4.

ElMaruecan82 This is one of the best Disney animated movies for many reasons, one and not the least, is that it is a visually dazzling experience even by Disney standards. Victor Hugo's "Notre Dame de Paris" has been adapted several times and featured many iconic performances of the misshaped bell ringer Quasimodo: Lon Chaney, Charles Laughton and Anthony Quinn to name the most memorable, but there comes a point where animation reveals itself to be a more difficult challenge than live-action, just think of all the implication such a title as "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" carries.You've got to recreate in the most convincing way the magnificent cathedral, which happens to be the most famous Parisian location perhaps after Eiffel Tower, and the Arc of Triumph. It is one thing to draw all the details, I'm a drawer and I know I can do it, but the animators work in three dimensions, it's not just the Cathedral from the ground, but from the top, from every single aisle, its majestic view on Paris and the Seine, the Gargoyles, the bells, like a virtual tour guide at the dawn of the Internet era. The Cathedral, as an emblematic representative of the Gothic period is known for the richness of its interiors, the magnificence of the stained glasses, and the vertiginous roofs and status, it isn't just any location, it is a character by itself that Quasimodo know by heart and the animators needed to render that impression, for some, it's a monument, for Quasi, it's home.They spent hours and hours of visits and notes and it started since 1993, and it sure paid off because you could tell they spent enough time so they could feel at home, too. So, we're never introduced to the Cathedral in a static way, whether it's a sword fight between Phoebus and Esmeralda, a vertiginous inspirational sliding over the roofs, or an acrobatic climax in a fire-stricken tower, the animators prove once again that there are infinitely more possibilities with animation, you can't have Quasimodo playing Tarzan with the ropes in a live-action film without a good deal of editing and preparation, in the film, it's all in lightness and fluidity. Disney has always been about imitating reality but to better transcend it. That's the trick! And the difficulty didn't only lie on the central elements but also the peripheral ones like the crowd. In a movie, you hire extras, in Disney, they used to set films in nature, or small villages, or places of a few characters or extremely different, but no overcrowded streets. In "The Hunchback of Notre Dame", when the action isn't set in the Cathedral, it's in the streets of Paris, which, as we can guess, were quite full in these medieval days. The animators had to draw many people, making them move, cheer, throw tomatoes, fight or laugh during crucial sequences, and they obtained the effect thanks to the CGI department, when CGI was a mean, not an end, and as it was used to recreate the thrilling stampede in "The Lion King", they recreated a wonderful and convincing Paris that had nothing to envy from her representation on movies.But I don't want to make it feel all tapestry and wizardry, the film doesn't just take a challenge on the field of visuals but on the messages delivered in the story, starting with acceptance, through the touching and haunting character of Quasimodo. While the animators eliminate a few other elements such as his deafness and one-eye, he's not a pretty sight, but there's something that oozes gentleness and naivety. Locked in the Cathedral by his "Protector" Judge Claude Frollo, he wishes to discover the real world out there. This might look as a set-up to a story that will teach him the value of self-esteem but the film is more ambitious and goes beyond that predictable premise. While Quasimodo is confronted to a hateful crowd, he also falls in love with the beautiful gypsy Esmeralda.And there's just something about Esmeralda, the tanned blue-eyed beauty that catches the men, Captain Phoebius instantly falls in love with her fieriness, and to make things even more complex, even the straight-laced and conservative Frollo gives her a kiss in her hair while holding her tight. Now that was a bold move in a Disney film. Indeed, villains, while not being one-dimensional, are generally defined through one particular trait: greed, power, jealousy. Frollo is an interesting antagonist in the sense that Esmeralda inspires him the very devilish thoughts he tries to fight; he's his worst enemy before being the enemy. In the extraordinary "Hellfire" sequence, he sings his incapability to repress his impulses, and the only way is to kill Esmeralda. This is Disney's best villain song, on a character so dark that I suspect adults will feel more responsive while children can learn the lesson about racism and intolerance, from his hatred toward gypsies.Yes, Esmeralda isn't just an object of desire, she embodies the pain of Quasimodo as a representative of people who are victims of racism and violence in ways seldom seen in Disney's universe, and in one of the film's most moving moments, she implores God for one thing: to save her people. Yes, God is present, as he was in "Fantasia", to those who believed that religion and sex couldn't share a sentence with Disney, here's a film that shows that in the midst of the great Renaissance period, there's nothing Disney couldn't achieve, it would have been rather bizarre not to have Jesus of the Virgin Mary in movie set primarily set in a Cathedral.I was in the right target during Disney Renaissance but I stopped watching the new Disney after "Pocahontas", I wish I could see this one at the time of its release, but I'm not sure I would have loved it more as a teen, than as an adult now.

datautisticgamer-74853 If not for some attempts typical of Disney at that time to make it more friendly for children, this could have been one of their best films; a dark drama documenting corruption within the Roman Catholic church in 1502 France. While it does execute that very well with Frollo, and does feature some of the darkest moments in Disney films (Hellfire is my favorite Disney villain song), I did take off points for the gargoyles, which failed pretty hard as comic reliefs (even more than Dinky and Boomer from The Fox and The Hound), and I was disappointed at how they made Frollo seem not highly devout (which you'd think they'd do for a religious judge), but the latter was less impacting of my score than the former. Of course they made some bad decisions, but it was FAR from deserving a Razzie nomination for Worst Written Film Grossing over $100 Million. Was 1996 a year for absolutely awesome movies that all happened to have formidably stellar writing, or were the people at the Razzies more ticked off about the comic reliefs than I was? Regardless, you might not enjoy the gargoyles, but you will appreciate the messages and themes it has. As I said in the title, I knew that I was going to be secular for the rest of my life, so that I could pass myself off as religiously tolerant, and so I wouldn't be the gypsy or gypsy hunter.