Disney Movie Challenge Bonus: The Hunchback of Notre Dame II (2002)

 Disney Movie Challenge Bonus

The Hunchback of Notre Dame II (2002)

When Disney decided to do a sequel to The Hunchback of Notre Dame they looked at the response to the first one and thought “remember how everyone thought the first one was too dark for kids, let's do the opposite of that”. So a fun lighthearted love story was born.  

The sequel picks up years after the first one.  Esmerelda and Phoebus are married and have a kid named Zephyr. Quasimodo still lives in the bell tower but is frequently visited by Esmerelda, Phoebus, and Zephyr.  This year at the Le Jour d'Amour festival Quasimodo wants to explore the city and see if he can find someone to love, instead a beautiful girl named Madellaine comes to the bell tower and he falls for her.  She seems to be interested in him but once she sees his face she runs away frightened.  It turns out the girl was sent there by an evil magician, Sarousch,  who wants to steal a bell full of jewels called La Fidèle.  Sarousch wants Madellaine to pretend to like Quasimodo to distract him from the bell.  But of course Madline starts falling in love with Quasimodo.  Eventually Quasimodo figures out the scheme and is hurt that Madeleine didn’t really love him.  But she proves her love to him by betraying Sarousch in the end and Quasimodo finally finds love.  

First thing I need to do is be honest.  I watched this movie once and fell asleep towards the end.  Don’t think I missed much so never went back and rewatched it.  With that out of the way let's start with the most amazing thing about the film.  Somehow Disney got pretty much the entire cast of the first one to come back for the sequel, including Tom Hulce, Demi Moore, Kevin Kline, and Jason Alexander.  Usually Disney animated sequels are a lot cheaper and they can’t pay for A-List talent but maybe by 2002 this cast wasn’t considered A-List.  Joining the original cast are some other high profile newcomers including Jennifer Love Hewitt as Madellaine, Haley Joel Osment as Zephyr, and Michael McKean as Sarousch.  Even with the stars of the film returning Disney didn’t put much effort into the film.  The animation doesn’t look good, the songs are bad, and the story is just bland. 

Overall: A mostly forgettable film.  The whole movie feels like a reaction to the complaint that the first one was too dark.  Here the hero gets the girl and Quasimodo finally gets his happily ever after.  Not having read the book I am going to assume Victor Hugo didn’t have any of this in his story.