The Secret of the Hunchback

This movie is brilliant. Bill Schwartz knows how to write a groundbreaking script. It challenges the stereotypes that typically go along with animated fairy tale feature films, for instance, being cheap, uninteresting, having flat characters, synthesized soundtrack etc. It will be talked about for generations to come. The characters are well-rounded individuals with complex inner dialogues. Together they go on action-packed and song-filled adventures. The kids will love the brilliantly choreographed dances. The animation is magnificent with stunning 3D graphics and seamless transitions. The songs have gorgeous melodies that will melt your heart and have you coming back for more. This movie is a classic, a treasure, and every household in America should have a copy.

This film is a mishandled work. It's better than the atrocious Golden Films version, but it's impossible to call this a quality product.

To begin with, this story throws the moral of "looks don't matter" in a painfully obvious way. It's said hundreds of times. And it's treated like the big secret of the film, many, many version had the moral in a better way, and this film is hardly the first time this moral was tackled. I got it, looks don't matter. They didn't have to drop the moral like a bucket of cold water.

The scenes were badly organized, the characters don't behave in a believable way (like the mask scene, where none act surprised for the weirdness of Quasimodo's clown mask), jokes are forced, boring and clichéd, the dialogs are rather simplistic and cliché. The writing is very pretentious, because it risks to invoke high drama just to end up not doing so. The ending is the worst part. I won't give details, but it's a very mishandled Deus ex Machina. Even for a Deus Ex Machina, this comes from nowhere.

The only worthy characters are Quasimodo, Esmeralda, the archdeacon and Pierre, but even they aren't a big deal. The other characters are annoying or uninteresting. Lord Frollo is a very weak villain, with many clichés, and also he's a rip-off of Gaston of Beauty and the Beast. Well, at least he's somewhat better than the "villain" of the Golden Films version. The henchman and the evil gypsies are very annoying characters, with stereotypical attitudes. Quasimodo is a decent character, but the treatment of magical disadvantaged is just wrong. Kinda ruins the movie moral (if the 0% subtlety already didn't).

Esmeralda's greedy song is quite good and memorable. Sadly, the same couldn't be said of the other songs. The gargoyle's song is just a cheap imitation of the Disney version, doesn't contribute to the plot, goes out of nowhere and is blatantly anachronistic. Blues came years later. Frollo's song isn't helpful, has letters which weaken him as a villain, is very repetitive and have a forced ending (too low notes). There is another song that doesn't matter. The soundtrack is decent, though.

Mostly, is not unwatchable, but it's a bad work. The moments hardly worked, almost all failed... Simply, this has some guide in how not to do derivative works.

First and foremost, if you are expecting an animated adaptation of the Victor Hugo masterpiece, look elsewhere. The cathedral, some of the character's names and to a very lesser extent the setting are pretty much the only recognisable things. Then again, it was clear from the title that this was never intended to be a straight-up adaptation and more like its own story with elements from the book, like the rest of UAV Corporation's animations it's very much an independent production. Even taking that into account, The Secret of the Hunchback still manages to be not very good at all and while some of UAV's filmography is watchable this is one of their worst efforts.

The Secret of the Hunchback has a few decent assets. It has three likable characters, the beautiful, strong-willed and sympathetic Esmeralda, the very poignantly characterised Quasimodo and the very kindly and fatherly Archdeacon. The animation is really not that great mostly, but a few of the backgrounds have some nice handsome detail, Notre Dame herself is very nicely done on the outside and there are some nice visuals in the Esmeralda-Pierre duet. John Campbell's incidental score fits well and sounds good and involving with the action, and of the few generally uninspiring songs one is memorable. And that was Esmeralda's, which was charming and catchy, well-sung and the only solo song that doesn't feel stylistically inappropriate.

On the other hand, the animation is not particularly good. Much of the visual style is very flatly coloured and low-budget television quality, a lot of the backgrounds are somewhat limited(the interiors of Notre Dame are far more splendid than the somewhat ordinary ones seen here) and the character designs are very crude and rushed-looking. Most of them are also very stereotypically drawn, especially the villains and the travellers, with Lord Frollo having numerous clichéd villain features except to more exaggerated and cheaper effect.

Apart from the incidental score and one song, The Secret of the Hunchback features one of Campbell's weakest and most forgettable song scores (disappointing considering that he did a great job on The Secret of Anastasia), the worst offender being the stylistically anachronistic, out-of-place and completely pointless Gargoyle's song, disconcerting also that the singer sounded nothing like the speaking voice. Frollo's song I could easily have done without too, timing-wise it came out of nowhere and didn't have a whole lot of point for being there other than the seeming 'need' to have an obligatory villain song (it says nothing that we don't already know at this point), on its own it was the most uninteresting of the bunch with the dull and slightly repetitive at best melody, the uninspired lyric writing, the out-of-kilter and growly low-notes in the last phrase and sang-through-gritted-teeth-sounding vocals. The Esmeralda-Pierre duet is sweet and tender and has the best singing for all the songs, but it's also a bit too short and like Frollo's song but not as bad there-only-for-the-sake-of-it.

In The Secret of the Hunchback, the writing is poor, with really forced jokes, anachronisms (especially in the Gargoyle song) and to add to the characters looking and sounding clichéd, they speak in a clichéd, dreary and simplistic way as well, not to mention it sounds incredibly dumbed-down even for a low-budget animation with children as the main target audience. The story feels both rushed and padded, The Secret of the Hunchback is not that long at all but there is not an awful that's interesting here. It feels rather predictable, with very few original ideas of its own, overly-simple and muddled as well, and just when one thinks 'hey this is not a bad climax' it is completely spoilt by that ridiculous and senseless touch with Quasimodo, which just took trying-to-make-the-story-their-own way too far.

The characters are not just stereotypes, but also are apart from three either annoying or personality-thin, that we know far too little about to care for or sympathise with them. The travellers and Frollo's adviser are particularly true for both, while Pierre is a little flat and this version has the most uninteresting and one-dimensional characterisation of Frollo. There was also no need for the gargoyle, the whole scene (where the song stuck out far more than the dialogue for all the wrong reasons) felt so closely indebted to the gargoyle scenes of the Disney film it was like watching a big rip-off, say what you will about the gargoyles in the Disney version but they served more of a point and more of moral compass than the one here. Of the voice work, Quasimodo's voice actor comes off best, emotive and surprisingly eloquent, though Esmeralda and Archdeacon come off decently. The voices for the travellers and the gargoyle are grating, Pierre is soft-spoken but light-weight and Frollo just sounded bored.

All in all, not completely unwatchable, but the worst version of anything to do with The Hunchback of Notre Dame, adaptation or independent. 3/10 Bethany Cox