The Hunchback of Notre Dame II

The Hunchback of Notre Dame II
After the first movie, somewhere in hell, Frollo is tortured by being forced to watch this sequel.
Genre: Animation Comedy Romance Musical Directed by: Bradley Raymond Produced by: Chris Henderson Hiroshi Saotome Stephen Swofford Written by: Flip Kobler Cindy Marcus Jule Selbo Starring: Tom Hulce Jennifer Love Hewitt Demi Moore Kevin Kline Haley Joel Osment Michael McKean Production company: Walt Disney Pictures Disney Television Animation Distributed by: Walt Disney Home Entertainment Release date: March 19, 2002 Country: United States Prequel: The Hunchback of Notre Dame

The Hunchback of Notre Dame II is a 2002 American animated musical film directed by Bradley Raymond. It is a direct-to-video sequel to Disney's 1996 animated feature film The Hunchback of Notre Dame. The film was produced by the Japanese office of Walt Disney Animation and Walt Disney Television Animation, while it was distributed by Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment. Much of the actors from the original film reprise their roles, with the addition of new characters played by Jennifer Love Hewitt, Michael McKean and Haley Joel Osment. Critical reception was mostly negative.

Why It Can't Awake To The Bells Of Notre Dame

1. Mediocre animation quality: The Hunchback of Notre Dame II was animated by some of the animators of Batman: The Animated Series. While that show is spectacular in it's own right, this one feels cheaper and downgraded compared to the first movie.
   • The film's animation quality is so poor that it feels rather out-of-place of all of Disney's low-budget animated output made for television/home video, which is unacceptable since even most of Disney Television Animation's TV cartoons of the time had way better animation than this. Instead, it's animation quality feels more on par with the cheap direct-to-video animated mockbusters produced by cheap companies like Golden Films at the time.
   • The lip-syncing can get so bad that at some points, they don't even bother moving the characters' mouths, which is absolutely unacceptable in a 2002 film.
2. Being a sequel to perhaps the darkest Disney film of all time, you would think that the tone would carry over to the sequel, but nope, it didn't. Instead, it went for a more lighthearted-romance movie which gives the characters without love interests from the original film a love interest for no discernible reason.
   • It should be worth noting that while the original The Hunchback of Notre Dame film did have it's far-share of light-hearted/funny moments as well as it's romance moments, they were implemented very well with some cleaver writing and dialoged, while in The Hunchback of Notre Dame II they feel out-of-place and fit more in-line with a Hanna-Barbera film.
3. The new characters introduced in this film are poorly conceived:
   • Sarousch is a horribly weak and pathetic main antagonist, even for Disney direct-to-video standards, and is a massive downgrade from the first film's main antagonist Judge Claude Frollo. In the first movie, Frollo, a ruthless Parisian justice minister, wanted to burn down Paris and potentially kill many, many innocents, just so that he can get rid of gypsies. Sarousch, on the other hand, is nothing but an arrogant, vain douchebag, who's generic plan involves stealing La Fidele to become rich.
     • In fact, Sarousch is an incredibly lame and rubbish villain, even by Disney direct-to-video-sequel standard, just like Lord Qin from Mulan II.
   • Madellaine is beautiful, but she is unfortunately bland and forgettable.
   • Zephyr(Phoebus' and Esmeralda's son) is cute, but annoying and is also just there to fill in for Phoebus.
4. Too many plot holes and continuity errors. Examples include:
   • In the first film, Esmeralda's eye's were green, but for some strange reason in the sequel, her eyes are blue.
   • At the end of the first film, Quasimodo is finally accepted by the people of Paris, and was implied that he finally moved out of the Cathedral's bell tower. In the sequel, however, he is still living in the bell tower for some unexplained reason, though it's most likely possible that he's still doing his job as a bellringer.
   • And speaking of La Fidele, why is there jewels on the inside? It'd hamper the bell's ability to ring, and even if it rings, the jewels will be shattered anyway, so it'd just be ruined in the long run.
5. Forgettable and horrible songs with idiotic lyrics, for example, "An Ordinary Miracle".
6. Horrible script and lame dialogue, like where Sarousch says this infamous line: I could kiss me, but I'd fall in love.
7. Most of the returning characters in the sequel have some issues:
   • The gargoyles are flanderized to be more annoying and get a lot more screen time in this film.
   • Phoebus somewhat acts like a complete jerk as well, believing that Carnies (the circus people) are evil, which Esmeralda compares to gypsies (though he was proven right later on). This also sounds racist, considering that this is a kids movie.
   • Esmeralda gets very little screen time despite being a key character and heroine in the first film.
8. The final battle near the end of the film is poorly done, as a climax set in an underground sewer where Madellaine and Quasimodo work together to save Zephyr from Sarousch is nowhere near as epic as the first film, where Phoebus, the gargoyles, the gypsies as well as the people of Paris fights off Frollo's minions, while Quasimodo and Esmeralda fights Frollo on the top of the Bell Tower that's is being pouring down by molten copper.
9. The first film had a perfect closing ending, so it was completely unnecessary for a sequel to be made. The reason for this movie to only exists is to give the people who watched the first movie the hope that Quasimodo got the girl he wanted.
10. The Hunchback of Notre Dame II was so negatively impacted that it (so far) killed The Hunchback of Notre Dame series, as any attempts of there being new installments or even a third film has yet to be made.
    • Not to mention, there was a live-action remake reportedly in the making, but was eventually cancelled due to creative differences. Though considering the bad reputation of live-action Disney remakes in general, this is honestly for the best.

Redeeming Qualities

1. Quasimodo finally get a girlfriend, Madellaine, and the romance between the two is done reasonably. The movie gives reasons for her to love him despite his physical appearance.
2. The voice acting is still good thanks to Tom Hulce, Demi Moore, Kevin Kline, Jane Withers, and Charles Kimbrough from the first movie returning for the sequel to reprising their roles.
3. While nowhere near as good as Frollo, Sarousch can be entertaining. Indeed, Sarousch can be seen as the reflection of the image Frollo had from all gypsies.
4. There are some admittedly good funny moments here and there, such as during the scene where Hugo and Laverne argue at each other, Hugo was saying "Take that..." only for him to get punched in the snout by Laverne, and snuffly said, "Back!".
5. All of the original voice cast is back, with two exceptions: Tony Jay due to character death, and Mary Wickes due to her actual death (Note: Mary Wickes died before she could finish recording her lines as Laverne in the first film, so Jane Withers completed her lines in the first film and took over as the voice of Laverne in this film following Mary Wickes' death).
6. The instrumental score by Carl Johnson, the composer of Gargoyles and Pooh's Grand Adventure: The Search For Christopher Robin, is also good.
7. With the exception of the gargoyles, and unlike some other Disney sequels, the rest of the returning characters aren't flanderized and are mainly faithful to the original incarnations, especially Quasimodo who is still a great protagonist.
   • Esmeralda is still likable despite getting very little screen time, as mentioned earlier.
   • Phoebus is still tolerable for the most part when he's not being racist.

Reception

While the first film was well-received by fans and critics alike, The Hunchback of Notre Dame II has been given largely negative reviews who criticizes it for its step-down animation and an overall light-hearted tone that feels out-of-place. The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported that 22% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 9 reviews, with an average rating of 4/10.[2]

DVDactive said it was an "unusually chintzy production", noting "the characters are slightly off-model, their movements are stilted, optical zooms are used in place of animated camera moves, animation cycles are over-used, and painted highlights float around between frames". It compared it to the company's television shows, adding it looks "cheap", "old", and "awful". It concluded by saying "it is mercifully short – under an hour without credits."[5] Hi-Def Digest said "There's really no point in wasting your time watching this subpar sequel of an already ho-hum movie", rating it 1.5 stars.[6] PopMatters notes "The Hunchback of Notre Dame II both addresses and cheapens the previous movie's notes of melancholy, as it sets about finding Quasimodo a romantic partner".[7] DVD Talk says "the story...somehow stretches what might have once been a 12-minute segment of the Smurfs to over an hour", and concludes that "the whole thing has the awful feel of a cash grab".[8]

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