Now this is a movie that I never owned but did see once in a while. I saw it for the first time in years a little over a year ago, but since I wasn't too big on reviewing films just yet, I didn't review it. But, since I've become a little interested in making myself officially familiar if you will about Don Bluth's films, I didn't waste too much time to put it on hold at the library. So here's my review for Anastasia.
Plot: In 1916, the Romanov monarch celebrates their 300th anniversary of their rule with a ball where Empress Marie Feodorovna gives her 8 year-old granddaughter, Anastasia a music box and a necklace with the words "Together in Paris". But shortly afterwords, a sorcerer named Rasputin casts a curse on the Romanov family after selling his soul in exchange for a dark relic to use to destroy the family. Rasputin starts a revolution which results in the Empress and Anastasia trying to escape. But along the way, Rasputin tries to capture Anastasia only to fall into some ice and drown and when they reach the train, the Empress to climb in the train, but Anastasia falls and is knocked unconscious and is lost into the crowd. Ten years later, the Empress, now living in Paris, is holding a big reward for the return of Anastasia if she's alive. So a conman named Dimitri and his friend Vlad try to find an Anastasia look alike in order to get the reward. They find this woman named Anya who has no memory of her past from before she was 8 years old, so they trick her to believing she is Anastasia and take her to Paris to meet the Empress.
Now there's the obvious reasons why this isn't a spectacular movie. Those reasons would be that it's an obvious Disney knock-off, and it's hardly historically accurate at all. But I think we can get over the fact that it's not all that historically accurate since it's probably not suppose to be, and for a total Disney knock-off, it didn't do that bad. In fact this one is probably the best Don Bluth at the very least has done. It's not all "magical" like Disney, but we still get a decent romance, some fun supporting characters either human or animal such as Vlad and Pooka, and some of the music i thought was pretty well done. It has a couple of stuff that doesn't make sense or was weird and stuff like that, but at the end of the day, it's still a nice film.
Characters:
Anya: She was a nice character. She was smart, friendly, stubborn at a fair few points, but still had this desire to find out who she is.
Rasputin: How he was as a villain was mixed. Most of the time he was pretty evil looking and all, but then there's him falling apart or doing weird thing like dressing up like Anya where you can't really take him too much seriously. I mean sure the falling apart kind of makes sense since he's in limbo and everything, but there's no reason for the dressing up like Anya or stuff like that. So he was mostly a decent villain, but it was stuff like that, that kept him from being anything else.
Bartok: His character was a little...I want to say confusing, but I feel like there's a better word for that. I mean by himself he was being the attempted main comedy relief, but then there's his relationship with Rasputin. I mean part of it is because it seems like they're close friends (which is generally rare for most villains and their sidekicks) but then he sometimes acts like it's not a big deal if something bad happens to Rasputin. I mean when he dies earlier in the film, he's like "oh no" at first, but then he kind of acts all "now what" right after that. *WARNING SPOILER* And then the same thing happens when Rasputin dies for good. Only this time, he somehow good just because he's happy that the good guys won or something and then gets the female bat. *END OF SPOILER* So on a whole, I don't think they really did a good job in making it clear about Bartok when it came to what side he was and how he was with Rasputin. So here's hoping they develop him a little more in that Bartok the Magnificent movie.
Music: I generally really liked the music. "Journey to the Past" I agree to it being nominated for Best Original Song, but I feel like "At The Beginning" should've been nominated too. I mean would either one have won? Considering they were against "My Heart Will Go On" from Titanic, no. But they were both fun songs with really good melodies that both deserved to have been nominated. "Learn to Do It" was a nice song, and it's so called reprise I feel should've been developed more to be its own song because the way it was going, it felt like it should've been. "In the Dark of the Night" was an awesome villain song. I will admit that some of the lyrics didn't make sense and the bugs where probably not the best choice as the animated chorus in the scene, and I thought the light brownish bug with the really low voice being brought in during the end of the song should not have been there. But it's still a really awesome villain song that's a lot of fun.
And that's my review for Anastasia. It may be a Disney knock-off that's historically accurate and has a couple of other issues, but it's still a very nice movie that you can have a nice decent time watching.
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