Wow. This could be the most underrated Disney Movie of all time. I remembered really liking it when I was younger, but re-watching it, I'd say it's nothing less than a masterpiece. For the first time during this countdown, I found myself getting choked up on numerous occasions.
What makes it so great? I'm glad you asked, hypothetical reader. First of all, it's a much darker movie than I remembered. It starts with the murder of a woman and the attempted murder of a baby. Judge Frolo is the most dangerous kind of villian. He gets his power from convincing the masses that the poorest of people (gypsies) are the cause of all the evil in Paris. This leaves him free to abuse his power and hide behind his false piety. It's a terrifying lesson in misdirected evil. It doesn't take a genius to see the similarities between the gypsies and our current obsession with immigration.
But I digress. The characters are fantastic, and the voice actors are great at shifting from dialogue to song without taking you out of the scene. The serious material is sometimes undercut by the very broad humor of Jason Alexander as the portly gargoyle, but considering the movie is about racism, genocide, and public ridicule of the handicapped, I'm ok with a few jokes to lighten the tone. If you watch the movie again, it's interesting to note different ways the three males leads relate to the Gypsy Esmerelda. Quasimodo and Frolo in particular, since they both have to deal with her rejection. Oh, and the songs are really, really good. These are starting to get long, so I will end it here.
9.5/10
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