The Hunchback of Notre Dame II (2002)

Good movie but grossly overrated

A Disappointing Continuation

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

I grew up on Disney a lot when I was a kid, and to this day there are still some films they made that I like. For this straight-to- video sequel, however, there is nothing really to say about it except that it is simply one of the WORST movies Disney has ever made, and it is not worth owning at all. All of the songs in this movie are really lousy, and lack the dark tone the songs in The Hunchback of Notre Dame 1 had. In addition, the animation of this sequel is very ugly like the character of Quasimodo, and the villain in this film, Serouche, is such a douche bag unlike Judge Claude Frollo in the first movie. In the end credits, though, I thought the song "I'm Gonna Love You" be Jennifer Love Hewitt was pretty, and it was a really good indicator that this horrible movie is over. To anyone who owns this movie on DVD at home, I would highly recommend you scratch up your discs against a wall, break your discs into pieces with your foot, gather up the broken pieces and take a picture of the broken discs on Facebook, and then just throw away all the pieces in your garbage cans. I also suggest you do this to DVDs of horrible films like "Pocahontas 2: Journey to a New World", "The Fox and the Hound 2", "Open Season", "The Muppets' Wizard of Oz", "Tarzan and Jane", "Twilight", "Daddy Day Care", "Monster House", "Honey We Shrunk Ourselves", "Gigli", "Happily 'N' Ever After", "Fat Albert" and many others that stunk (but not "The Cat in the Hat" with Mike Myers, because I like that one), as well as with all Kidz Bop and Justin Bieber CDs. To summarize this review in short, this film is terrible.

Before I explain why this movie is an torture device, I will tell my opinion about the first Hunchback of Notre Dame. The 1996 version of the classic book by Victor Hugo is known for being the darkest of the Disney movies, and is one of my favorite Disney movies of them all (note to self: Review the first Hunchback of Notre Dame).Enough with the masterpiece of the original, let's talk about the sh***t piece of a STD (or DVS). Do you remember the dark story of the original, with elements as lust, genocide and religious taboo's? Just like Frollo, thy throw it of Notre Dame to his death and replace it for a cliché as hell love story from beginning to end. I have a hate to everyone who wanted that Quasimodo must have the girl at the end of the first movie. It is because of them that this sequel exist.The plot of this movie is this. The people of Paris prepare for their favorite holiday, the festival of love (what happened to fest of fools, I don't know). Quasimodo wonders if he will get a girlfriend, and a circus comes to town under the leadership of the laziest villain ever (one that wands money instead of one that wands to commit an total genocide). He wants to steal a bell implanted with jewels (what makes the bell a useless thing) and Madeline, his assistant, must distract Quasimodo in order for the villain to steal the bell. I will not explain the rest of the plot, because you will find it out yourself by reading the previous lines of text.The dark, fantastic animation of the first movie is now replaced with cheap sequel animation, that has to many bright colors , and looks worse than an animated cartoon from the 80s. Hanna Barbara looks like an anime movie in compare with this film. You can see the cheapness of the animation in the population of Paris, what is reduced to about 20 people. In a scene with 50 people on screen, more than 30 of them are painted on the background.The music is just bland, boring and forgettable. The worst song was song by the gargoyles, what was overly happy, in a bad way.The characters from the first movie are not what they were. Phoebus for example is an racist prick, and his son Zepher is more annoying than the gargoyles. The new characters are not worth mentioning, because their personalities are thinner than the paper they're drawn on.Fans of the book by Victor Hugo will find out that the 1996 movie is not that bad in compare with this film. Fans of the original movie need to stay AS FAR AWAY AS POSSIBLE FROM THIS THING!!!!!. To make it short: This movie is bad.

Now, Straight To Video Disney sequels are notorious for their lack of quality, and I was in the mood for something bad (Don't ask me why, I get these hot flushes you see, and...). A follow-up to The Hunchback Of Notre Dame is especially maligned as one of the worst, so I decided to put on my tin hat and have a look. I confess, I emerged from the experience somewhat... disappointed. Yes, the songs are awful, with a completely forgettable plot and cheap-as-chips animation, but it wasn't quite the crapfest I was lead to believe. Anyone with a functioning brain who's sat through The Pebble And The Penguin will testify to that.Somehow, they were able to get heavyweights from the original theatrical release like Demi Moore and Kevin Kline to revoice their characters, rather than do what's normal and find less expensive soundalikes to replace them. This is quite impressive, unlike their new appearances... which seem to have lost a lot of fluidity in motion. Oh well, it's still better than your average Saturday Morning cartoon (Actually, that term is now dead, they were all taken over by cookery shows, of course...).The film is just... there. It tells an unimaginative story, It assaults our ears with horrible tunes, it gives politically correct nods to deformed people and gypsies, it has a few mildly humorous lines from three bell-tower gargoyles, then it all ends in the most predictable anti-climax on record. Why was it made? I hardly think anyone was crying out for a sequel to the original. Perhaps it was done as some kind of dare? 4/10

I'm not saying it's one of the better Disney sequels but I think the rating's a bit unfair. In my defense, it's been a long time since I saw the first one and I don't remember much so I can't say how true it was but I am disappointed that Esmeralda was a mere supporting character and the kid was annoying. This is one of those typical Disney films that hardly offer anything new but I still enjoyed some moments of it which is why I'd rate it slightly higher than the average rate. I liked the chemistry between Quasi and Madeline. The songs are quite bad but typical Disney. I liked the little goat character too but he was a minor. I liked the way Paris was animated and how they left the streets wet and shiny after the rain (attention to detail). The ending was very choppy and abrupt (it's only a one-hour film). However, I didn't see it as an abysmal film and having read some of the comments, I think many people are being a little too harsh.