The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)

When I was a kid, I didn't care for Disney films. Bambi was okay, and so was Lady and the Tramp, but I never went out of my way to watch any other Disney animated films.

I think there were a couple of reasons for this. One, the films usually felt girly to me, because they focused on princesses, and I didn't care about princesses.

And two, and maybe equally girly, they all seemed to be full of songs. I didn't care for all the singing.

But by the time I saw The Lion King, and I was cool with princesses, and I didn't mind the songs.

That said, The Hunchback of Notre Dame just has too many damn songs. Google says it has between 7-to-9, depending on what's counted as a song, and that it's one of the "most heavily dense" Disney animated movies with songs.

The actual movie, which had a $70-100 million production budget, is quite good. They really make Esmerelda's (Demi Moore) eyes pop, for example. (By the way, Moore didn't sing Esmerelda's song. That was done by an apparently random night club singer who never worked on another TV or movie project again. Hunchback was her one-off.)

If you compare this version to the 1939 Hunchback starring Charles Laughton, sorry, but it's not even close. That movie is so, so much better, but I respect that this movie targets a different audience. I just wish that this audience would somehow also find the 1939 version for themselves. Disney movies are great, but if that's all you know and that's all you watch, you are missing out, my friends. Go watch it right now and thank me later.

In the Disney movie, we want the Hunchback to end up with Esmerlda, right? Don't we? At the end we see him with Esmerlda and Phoebus, and Quasimodo puts their hands together... it's so sad. He's already seen them kiss earlier, and Esmerlda never has a kiss saved for Quasimodo. But why couldn't Esmerlda and Quasimodo work? They're both outcastes. Maybe they don't "match" physically, but should that matter?

The ending, then, gives us the natural "romance" ending, but it also gives us the third wheel... the "monster" who will never find love.

Rating: 3.5/5 stars

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