But what if Quasimodo could find love? That had to be the question screenwriters worked with when they pitched and wrote the sequel.
When we watched this film last night, my daughter said, "Who asked for this sequel to be made?" I think it's a fair question. All of the voice actors, for whatever reason, came back. But the budget is clearly no longer $100 million. The songs are weaker. The animation is weaker. And, while I don't actually mind the storyline that much (except for the ending), it's weaker as well.Esmerlda and Phoebus are married. They have a son, but neither they nor the goat look any older. They haven't aged at all. Nor have their characters developed in any noticeable way.
Quasimodo does seem a little more social. He goes out and about, and none of the people run from him or throw rotten vegetables at him. Everyone seems to get along.
Enter this movie's "gypsies" -- the circus people. The whole plot centers around the Madellaine (Jennifer Love Hewitt) and her evil circus boss. Lots of parallels between this relationship and Quasimodo's relationship between he and Frollo from the first movie. Anyway, the bad guy in this movie wants Quasimodo's fancy bell. Why he needs Madellaine's assistance, unknown. The dude literally uses the power of magic to remove the bell from the belltower. He doesn't need Madelaine to trick Quasimodo.
But, of course, she and Quasimodo need to meet. And, since this is a girl, Quasimodo falls immediately for her, carves her imagine into his playset of the Paris, and wishes he wasn't so ugly.
This time, however, Madellaine doesn't have an alternative lover. In the first movie, Esmeralda always had Phoebus, but Madellaine has no other suitor besides Quasimodo. Is she supposed to be ugly? Is she supposed to be viewed as a "circus freak," similar to how people viewed gypsies in the first film? I'm not sure. Everything is rather muted in this movie. To me, it felt like they just had a concept: "Let's let Quasimodo get the girl this time." Otherwise, the script feels a little lazy.
In my view, don't make a sequel unless you know it can be done as well as the first. If it can't be that good, don't make it. In that regard, about the only animated sequels that meet the bar are in the Toy Story and Shrek franchises. Otherwise, don't bother.
I usually don't watch sequels, period. I watched this one just because it came with the DVD set and I was morbidly curious to see how bad it would be. For a while, I was leaning toward 2 stars, but ultimately, the ending dropped it back to 1 star, which is still probably generous.
Rating: 1/5 stars
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