LogFAQs > #983485485

The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Originally released June 21, 1996

I'm a little... eh, I dunno, neutral on this one? It's a good movie with a couple important themes to it (accept yourself, and accept others) but honestly it just didn't engage me as much as other movies have. It did have one really neat narrative trick that I never caught on to as a kid and REALLY enjoyed, which I'll mention later.

Judge Claude Frollo ambushes a group of Roma (the movie itself uses the slur for them exclusively; I refuse to do so) as they try to enter Paris at night, killing a mother and taking her baby. Once he realizes the baby is deformed, he plans to drown it in a well, but a priest exits Notre Dame and asks "the fuck are you doing?" The priest orders Frollo to raise the baby as his own child to repent for the mother's murder, and Frollo's like "fine, but he lives here".

Twenty years later, Quasimodo is swingin' around the Notre Dame bell tower with his three waist-up gargoyle friends, named Laverne, Victor, and Jason Alexander. Quasimodo wants to go down into the city and join the Festival of Fools, and with a little encouragement from the gargoyles, he does just that. He's pulled into a song-and-dance number and named the King of Fools because he's ugly, which is kind of a mixed signal. Even more mixed is when the crowd turns on him and starts torturing him, until the Romani girl Esmeralda steps in to help, with a little bit of support from the captain of the guard Phoebus. Both Esmeralda and Phoebus get to join the CERTIFIED GOOD GUYS club, because they're both just great and kind and helpful to everyone, not just Quasimodo.

Frollo is pissed off that Quasimodo went to the Festival, and even more pissed off that Esmeralda helped him, wanting her found and killed. He gets even more pissed off when Phoebus refuses to arrest her inside Notre Dame, lying and claiming that she called base. While she's in Notre Dame, we learn that Jason Alexander is Disney's first officially out gay character, because he VERY OPENLY has the hots for Esmeralda's pet male goat, Djali. (I had to look it up, because I was about to misspell it as "Jolly") Later that night, Quasimodo helps Esmeralda escape while Frollo gets his first erection in 70 years by thinking about her, deciding that he needs to burn down all of Paris in order to see her either married to him or dead.

So, he has his guards start setting Paris on fire. Phoebus refuses to burn a house containing an innocent family, and instead dives in to save them from the inferno. Frollo orders him killed but he escapes, but gets shot in the shoulder with an arrow and falls in the river. Esmeralda rescues him and takes him to Notre Dame, where she treats his injury and makes out with him in front of Quasimodo. Frollo returns shortly after and tricks Quasimodo into leading him to the secret Romani hideout, the "Court of Miracles", because he somehow knows that Quasimodo has a way to find it I guess?

Quasimodo and Phoebus get to the Court and are almost killed, but Esmeralda saves them from being hanged. Frollo storms the place with a bunch of soldiers and takes them all prisoner, and the next day he's ready to burn Esmeralda. Quasimodo goes full Hulk and breaks a bunch of chains before swinging down on a rope that's constantly changing length to save her, bringing her back up to the bell tower and calling base. Frollo orders his men to attack Notre Dame, and Quasimodo holds them off with the help of the gargoyles. Phoebus rallies the citizens of Paris to revolt against Frollo and his soldiers, because holy shit, enough's enough.

Whoops, Esmeralda's dead. Frollo makes his way to the bell tower and tries to stab Quasimodo, but loses the knife to him. Whoops, Esmeralda's alive. Frollo chases them around the exterior of Notre Dame, trying to kill them with a sword, but falls off into a pool of lava. Phoebus saves Quasimodo from falling, and the day is won. Quasimodo steps back to let Esmeralda and Phoebus be together because they're both hot, even though I don't think a throuple scenario was ever off the table. He then steps outside and a little girl touches his face. The End.

Like I said above, it's not a bad movie, but it just didn't grab me. A lot of parts felt a little slow or uninteresting, and with the exception of Topsy Turvy and Hellfire, the music was kind of quiet and dull. It just wasn't as exciting as other Renaissance Era movies until the siege at the very end, and at times it felt like the plot was just plodding along.

However, I did also mention a neat narrative trick they employed. As I was watching, I realized that the movie is pretty unclear as to whether or not the gargoyles themselves are actually sentient things that can move around, or if Quasimodo is just nuts and invented his own friends out of loneliness. There are a few moments that break this theory, like when Jason Alexander hits on Djali or when they assist with holding back the attack at the end of the movie, but these parts could also be viewed as Quasimodo's imagination at work while HE'S the one throwing bricks and catapults.

Not a bad movie, but not the best Disney's ever done. Kind of middle-of-the-pack by the Renaissance Era standards.

Final Score: 7/10