Quasimodo (Tom Hulce) is the hunchbacked bell-ringer in the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris. Living in the tower on his own, he spends his days talking to the gargoyles, who he imagines talk back to him. He has been kept locked up in the tower his whole life by his guardian Frollo (Tony Jay).
One day, he ventures down from the tower to join in the 'Festival of Fools' in the town square. While down on the ground, he sees a gypsy by the name of Esmeralda (Demi Moore), and becomes taken with her. She also reaches out to him, seeing the true man behind the grotesque appearance, and goes back with him to the tower.
Of course, Frollo is not happy about this, and forbids Quasimodo from leaving again, and banishes Esmeralda from the church.
I'm not saying any more about the plot, there are other things I want to discuss.
Disney fans among you will know of course that this film came after we had been treated to The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and The Lion King. This film, despite having great music from Alan Menken, composer for a lot of these classic Disney masterpieces, really doesn't stand up to these others in my opinion. Remember that Disney had been pushing the limits of what was possible in animation in these other films: Beauty and the Beast had that amazing ballroom sequence, The Lion King had the wildebeest stampede, and so on. Sure, this has some amazing architecture in terms of the spectacle of the cathedral and other Paris architecture, all of which is realistic and accurate to how things actually look and are constructed, but the animation itself is nothing to crow about.
Directors Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise have tried to give a decent story, with enough twists and turns to keep audiences interested, but again, I feel they have somehow fallen short. There is little to no character depth in any of the characters, they all feel very flat and one-dimensional to me, and almost everything that happens is incredibly predictable.
The standout of this film I feel are the lyrics, written by Stephen Schwartz, writer of several Broadway hit shows, and who would later go on to write the songs to Wicked, still running on Broadway more than 15 years after opening. And when it comes to lyrics, Schwartz is a genius in no uncertain terms, and this is true of this film too. He comes up with amazing rhymes that you never see coming, and his wit and humour are as ever present in this as they are in anything he has written. But this alone is not enough to redeem this film.
The film is worth a watch I think, but not really worth a rewatch.
4 out of 10.
No comments:
Post a Comment