Ben
Meyers’ rating: 3.4|5.0
Stars ììì
The Hunchback of Notre
Dame takes a series of complicated
life issues—physical barriers, societal conformity and exclusion issues,
poverty and power structuring problems, authority injustice and complicity
hurdles, political and religious complications, love and betrayal challenges,
winning and losing cycles, acceptance and rejection constraints, caste
structuring barriers, to name a few—and successfully turns these very adult
issues into a great animated children and adult film watch. The movie performs
as an animated drama that ultimately teaches that every person’s journey is
affected by the goodness and badness of others, but perseverance can lead to
purpose and happiness. While the film is a little slow in places and some
voicing choices do not seem to match their character (i.e., the voices for the
gargoyles where the female gargoyle named Laverne (voice of Mary Wickes) was a
gravelly voice; the muscular gargoyle named Victor (voice of Charles Kimbrough)
had a weak voice; and Quasimodo (voice of Tom Hulce) had more of a child’s
voice than the stronger voice expected for his age), the film still works at every
level. This is not a comedy, but the writers manage to include a few comical
scenes to break the drama. The movie successfully introduces the plight of
gypsies, orphans, migrant peoples, illegal residents, and underground slum populations
as well as the results of poor resolution of difficult situations by those in
authority—all issues that are still valid today. The film provides good
conversation leads for later discussion at the family table.
Film Poster Courtesy of Wikipedia
Additional Thanks
Good
work for Directors Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise. Thank you to Producer Don Hahn,
Co-Producer Roy Conli, and Associate Producer Phil Lofaro for making the film
possible. Casting voices include: Quasimodo (Tom Hulce), Hugo (Jason Alexander),
Clopin (Paul Kandel), Esmeralda (Demi Moore), Laverne (Mary Wickes), Frollo
(Tony Jay), and Baby Bird (Frank Welker).
Buy a ticket? Yes? No? Maybe?
Yes. This wonderful production succeeds in almost every way.
Video Critique Available Here:
Ben Meyers
No comments:
Post a Comment