I love the Hunchback of Notre Dame. At least I love it when I haven't seen it in a while. The soundtrack to this movie - composed by the brilliant Alan Menken - is magnificent. While I personally favour the "background" pieces over the solo-songs of the actual good guys ('Out There', 'God Help the Outcast' & 'A guy like you'), these songs nevertheless are musically great. So when listening to the score, first and foremost Minister Frollos song 'Hellfire' and the title song 'Bells of Notre Dame', I LOVE this movie.
Watching it sadly is almost always a slight disappointment to me, when I see how unfittingly rough the animation is drawn, compared to the epicene of the score. The background imagery is still beautiful, but the characters are drawn much simpler as in other Disney movies (for example compared to The Jungle Book) which I personally don't like as much.
The plot is good and sends a strong message, but only one scene - the Feast of Fools - really gets to me emotionally. The harshest realisation I came to as an adult is that Frollo, while being truly despicable, is actually telling Quasimodo the truth: He wouldn't be accepted in our world. Despite this cold and brutal truth, the movie doesn't get me involved as other Disney movies do (I still cry every time I watch 'Inside Out') and the animation isn't as breathtaking as usual.
Overall, the plot and animation would get this movie a 4-5 star rating, but the score (I really love Alan Menken for that) and this unveiled realistic statement of how cruel our world actually is against those, who are different, pull it up to 7 stars for me. I still enjoy watching it a lot, though I have to say that I prefer just having 'the Bells of Notre Dame' playing on repeat.
Watching it sadly is almost always a slight disappointment to me, when I see how unfittingly rough the animation is drawn, compared to the epicene of the score. The background imagery is still beautiful, but the characters are drawn much simpler as in other Disney movies (for example compared to The Jungle Book) which I personally don't like as much.
The plot is good and sends a strong message, but only one scene - the Feast of Fools - really gets to me emotionally. The harshest realisation I came to as an adult is that Frollo, while being truly despicable, is actually telling Quasimodo the truth: He wouldn't be accepted in our world. Despite this cold and brutal truth, the movie doesn't get me involved as other Disney movies do (I still cry every time I watch 'Inside Out') and the animation isn't as breathtaking as usual.
Overall, the plot and animation would get this movie a 4-5 star rating, but the score (I really love Alan Menken for that) and this unveiled realistic statement of how cruel our world actually is against those, who are different, pull it up to 7 stars for me. I still enjoy watching it a lot, though I have to say that I prefer just having 'the Bells of Notre Dame' playing on repeat.