Words cannot describe the atrocity that is "The Hunchback of Notre Dame II." "The Hunchback of Notre Dame," Disney’s animated-film adaptation of the Victor Hugo novel of the same name, was an underrated movie that maturely handled the serious and dark subject matter of its source material. What could possibly go wrong with a direct-to-video sequel?

Besides having a severely diminished budget (no true numerical data is available for this, but the visuals of the film itself is proof enough), and the animation being outsourced to Disney Animation Japan, which is only credited with producing one other film before this one, "The Tigger Movie," "The Hunchback of Notre Dame II" was severely lacking in everything that makes a Disney movie a good Disney movie; the villain, the songs, the depth of the main characters, the humor, the story, all were poor.

First off, the characters are the same that were in the original, and the characters that came from Hugo’s novel and the voice-actors are essentially all the same; Jason Alexander and Demi Moore are still in it, along with Kevin Kline and Tom Hulce. There’s nothing particularly wrong with their voices, besides the fact that they seem mostly disinterested in their lines. Demi Moore seems the most bored with her lines, being very casually read with minimal expression. The main problem with the characters is the introduction of the new villain, since the great and complex Frollo is dead. This new villain, Sarousch, is a simple villain with one goal in mind: he wants to steal the most valuable bell from the Notre Dame, the bell that has jewels on the inside. He wants money. When you get down to the root of Sarousch’s motives, he wants money. Plain and simple. He just wants money, and that is the only reason he does the things he does. He also has a ‘servant’ who falls in love with Quasimodo, but I’ll get to that in a little bit. With Frollo, we had this complex character who struggled with lust that he blamed on Esmerelda, he tried to cover up his sins by persecuting the gypsies, and he constantly lied and manipulated others to get his way. In this movie, Sarousch just wants money. And of course, since the movie revolves around a festival of love, because the Notre Dame is in France I suppose, they had to include a romantic love interest for Quasimodo. This love subplot hits every major romance film cliché: she admires his work (his little wood carvings), but once she sees him she flees in terror (because he’s a hideous monster) and then, after being forced to spend more time with him so that Sarousch can steal the most valuable bell, she begins to and does fall in love with him, but when he finds out that she initially tricked him, he becomes angry and doesn’t want to see her ever again, but they do something, yada yada, they’re in love again and everything is happy-dory by the time the credits roll. From the simple villain to the cliché romance, there’s enough cringe-worthy moments.

The songs themselves are utterly and completely forgettable. Not one of them do I remember while I write this. Not one stands out in my memory. Even the pompous and grandiose opening of the original was thrown out for some happy, romantic-feeling synth-orchestra. I really don’t have anything else to say about the songs besides that they’re just there. They don’t really help the plot progress, but they aren’t entirely about nothing; they’re really just not needed, whereas in the original the songs served to show us Frollo’s motives for his villainy or to give some kind of backstory to a character or characters. There’s really just no point to the songs in this one.

The animation is… is… really bad. The first minutes of the film is a testament to that. As soon as the camera pans down to show the ‘crowd’ of ‘people’ celebrating the festival of love that is going on, you can tell how little effort went into fleshing out the throng to make it seem like it was densely populated like it should have been, like how the original movie was. The original was fluid and had huge crowds, and the Notre Dame was spectacularly rendered in its great combination of 3D and 2D animations with Quasimodo dancing and climbing all over it. In this one, the Notre Dame is a static 2D background, Quasimodo sometimes appears like a slideshow as he walks, the colors are bland and the entire presentation is too light, too bright. It is reasonable to expect that there will be less refinement and less technical bravado, but the degree to which this film suffers is inexcusable. Not only is there a severe lack of frames present but, the degree when the supposed ‘crowds’ are only about ten people in a tiny square, or when the titular character and location are stilted and just a background, respectively, it is an eyesore. It is a good thing that this film is only a little over an hour, because how lacking the visual presentation is is painful to behold, and is certainly far below Disney film standards, even for a sequel.

There will always be downsides to making these kinds of sequels, especially when they are direct-to-video. It is always risky taking familiar characters and setting them to a new plot with a new animation crew and new writers. But taking these characters from a such a dark and serious adaptation of a great and important novel then disrespecting the source material is a great offense. It is one thing simplifying a character; it is another to change a character. Quasimodo should be monstrous to the people. Even if he saved the day in the original film, he is still a hideous man to look at, but the people seem to have forgotten this, allowing him to prance about in public, allowing him to take care of their children even! I can believe they looked at him a hero, but that doesn’t mean that they would have welcomed and shown him the love that they did in this sequel. I cannot suspend my disbelief to the point where his hideousness did not cause any uproar in the streets. Perhaps that could have been a better sequel: Quasimodo wanted to be closer to the people, but they were disgusted with his appearance and so they wanted him to remain where he was, ringing his bells. But no. Instead, we get this half-baked sequel that is putrid to look at it, and is dull in just about every other regard.

I do not recommend this film to anyone, of any age for any reason (unless of course you subject yourself to watching every Disney sequel…). Instead, go and watch the original; it is a much better film in every regard, and is highly underrated.