If not for some hopelessly incompetent and wasted attempts to lighten the mood... it might well be able to compete with Beauty and the Beast as the best film of the Disney Renaissance.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:48
Fresh:35
Rotten:13
Average Rating:7/10
Consensus: Disney's take on the Victor Hugo classic is dramatically uneven, but its strong visuals, dark themes, and message of tolerance make for a more-sophisticated-than-average children's film.
Synopsis: The characters in Victor Hugo's 1831 novel about lonely bell-ringer Quasimodo and his adventures with the beautiful Esmerelda come vividly and musically to life--even the stone gargoyles! This... The characters in Victor Hugo's 1831 novel about lonely bell-ringer Quasimodo and his adventures with the beautiful Esmerelda come vividly and musically to life--even the stone gargoyles! This updated '90s version features Quasimodo as an awkward youth, a departure from the Hugo text. Featuring the voices of Tom Hulce, Jason Alexander, Demi Moore, Kevin Kline and David Ogden Stiers. Academy Award Nominations: Best Original Musical or Comedy Score. [More]
Starring: Demi Moore, Tom Hulce, Jason Alexander, Kevin Kline
Starring: Demi Moore, Tom Hulce, Jason Alexander, Kevin Kline, David Ogden Stiers, Charles Kimbrough
Director: Gary Trousdale, Kirk Wise
Director: Gary Trousdale, Kirk Wise
Reviews for The Hunchback of Notre Dame
A solid, enjoyable, beautifully animated Disney movie, but one not quite out of the top drawer.
An improvement on 1995's Pocahontas, but not as good as the classics.
The result is a grand cartoon cathedral, teeming with gargoyles and treachery, hopeless love and tortured lust.
Considering that Disney couldn't help but trash Victor Hugo's novel in the process of reforming it for tender young sensibilities, this animated adaptation of his Notre Dame de Paris is pricklier and more disturbing than we had any right to expect.
Disney has created a movie that, like Quasimodo himself, is half formed.
There is much to admire in Hunchback, not least the risk of doing such a downer of a story at all.
Though Alan Menken's music misses the big tune that would cap Stephen Schwartz's nimble lyrics, it's the thematic sophistication that brings the movie to life, making older children and adults its best audience.
A inevitável infantilização do clássico de Victor Hugo não compromete o núcleo dramático da história %u2013 e as belíssimas canções e o visual espetacular mais do que compensam as falhas pontuais da adaptação.
If you want to know what really happened to Quasimodo, Esmeralda, Frollo and Phoebus, try the library.
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