An American Tail (1986)

Rating: 70%
Now up till a few years ago, I only knew An American Tail from the sequel to this film, An American Tail: Fievel Goes West. But then I finally saw this movie when I was a little older when Toon Disney had that double cartoon movies thing back in the day. So here's my thoughts on it seeing it again last night.

Plot: Fievel and his family are mice who live in fear of cats coming to eat everyone. When their home was destroyed in a fire after the village was attacked by Cossacks and their cats, Fievel's family sail to America where it's suppose to be a long to oppertunity, and above all, there are no cats. But along the way, Fievel is separated from his family when he fell of the ship during a storm. He ends up in America where after some influence from a pigeon named Henri, he goes off to somehow find his family in New York.

Now I've heard a couple of critics not really care for this movie because it's mostly just dark and gloomy. And for the most part, I have to agree. It has comedy relief on one or two points, but otherwise it's mostly a pretty sad film. I mean Fievel is going through a lot of hard stuff with either being tricked, attacked by cats, and just finding it so hard to find his family. I think it helps to be amusing for kids a little bit that it's all talking animals and stuff, but it still is pretty dark. But either way, it's still a nice, well made film that does have a decent story and it does have at least some cheery parts and some entertaining characters.

Characters:
Fievel: I thought Fievel was a very cute character. He was slightly brave yet he was young and innocent which made him easy to love an care for as a character.
Tiger: I thought this was a nice way to introduce him as a cat who doesn't eat mice, but while he was a little cute with how funny he was, I may enjoy him more when I get to Fievel Goes West.

Music: The music is very good. I mean this movie does contain the song "Somewhere Out There" which is a pretty good song. One I did think was nice when I saw this movie again last night, was how the kids doing the singing voices of Fievel and Tanya weren't the best since they were kids. I though that was a nice touch in the movie to make these characters more believable with their choice of voice actors for these very young characters.

And that's my review for An American Tail. It may not be for all kids considering how it is dark and gloomy mostly, but it's still a nice film with nice characters and some good music to enjoy.