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.
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.