Friday, July 11, 2014

The Hunchback of Notre Dame II

The Hunchback of Notre Dame II.jpgSince Disney couldn’t keep bear to let any of their renaissance films get sequels, The Hunchback of Notre Dame II was made. And while most of the cast returns, Jane Withers was added to replace Mary Wickes and Jim Cummings replaced David Ogden Stiers. There were also new voices from Haley Joel Osment, Jennifer Love Hewitt, and Michael McKean.

Six years after the original film, Quasimodo (Tom Hulce) is an accepted part of society, but still serves at the bell ringer. A circus troupe led by Sarousch (McKean) enters town s art of the yearly Festival of Love. He plans to steal the bell La Fidele and sends his assistant Madellaine (Hewitt) to discover its whereabouts. She encounters Quasimodo, setting off a chain of events that determine the eventual fate of the bell.

With all the subtlety of a frying pan to the face, Disney decides to tell us that true beauty is on the inside. The comparisons of Quasimodo and the bell could not have been more obvious and for some reason, they decide to give him a girlfriend. One of the great things about the first film is that the hero didn’t get the girl, instead becoming a really good friend.
The animation in this is also atrocious. It was done by Disney’s Japanese animation studio, but that only makes it worse. I’ve seen far better things come out of Japan. And for some reason, the population of Paris has been reduced to somewhere between 20 and 30.
We also get the exact same moral of the first story, only this time it’s with carnies. And Zephyr, the son of Phoebus and Esmerelda, is quite annoying.

#80

No comments:

Post a Comment