Disney animated literary adaptation, with songs. And, despite the track record of Victor Hugo as a begetter of hit musicals (Les Miz), not a good idea. Not even if you have the "vision," the nerve, the self-servingness, to see clear to how the twice-told tale of the bell-tower hermit Quasimodo and the gyrating gypsy Esmeralda could, in the end, be turned into a happy, joyful, celebratory affair: how their fates could be rerouted into an upbeat and edifying primer on the inherent worth of society's outcasts; how Quasi (as he is known to his intimates, namely a trio of gregarious gargoyles) could be converted into little more than a self-conscious adolescent (cracking voice of Tom Hulce, but with a face strangely reminiscent of Nathan Lane), and then converted further into François Villon as translated by Ronald Colman and finally into a poster boy for Liberty, Equality, Fraternity; and how the emerald-eyed, cocoa-skinned, coconut-breasted Esmeralda could be drafted into service in the latter-day Disney platoon of Fearless Fighting Feminists (voice of Demi Moore, eyebrows of Sean Young). Or in the words of the Dudley Do-right captain of the guard (so much more suitable as a kissing partner, once you reach the limits of tolerance and understanding, than the malformed Quasi): "What a woman!" The finished product is not without its points: buckets of color, whirlpools of movement, dabs of wit; some vertiginous illusions of height; a spectacular Paris-is-burning skyline; and a groundbreaking sequence for a children's cartoon wherein a Moral Pillar battles losingly against Carnal Desire in front of a fireplace whose flames take the curvaceous and undulating shape of a hootchie-kootch. Still, not a good idea. (1996) — Duncan Shepherd