Anastasia

Anastasia
by Don Bluth, Gary Goldman

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DVD Reviews of Anastasia

DVD Review: The Best Don Bluth Movie I've Seen
Summary: 3 Stars

Based loosely on a play by Marcelle Maurette and Guy Bolton. As well as the 1956 film adaptation of the play by Arthur Laurents, the story turns the mystery of the disappearance of Anastasia, daughter of Czar Nicholas, following the murder of the Russian royal family, into a fairy tale. You have to ignore everything you know about history in order to accept the execution of the film--it plays loose with the Communist revolution and with Rasputin.

Dimitri (voiced with great charm by John Cusack, sung by John Dokuchitz) is a con artist living in St. Petersburg. Along with his friend Vladimir (the entertaining Kelsey Grammer), he is searching for a young girl who can play the role of the missing Romanoff heir in order to claim a reward from the dowager empress who has escaped to Paris. He meets Anya (voiced with much character by Meg Ryan, sung by the incredible Liz Callaway) and immediately sees in her the girl to carry out his plans. As he and Vladimir work with Anya to perfect her ruse, he comes to realize that she is the true Anastasia.

Then we add the elements that make it a Don Bluth movie--Anya has a cute dog and there is a magical villain in the (dead) body of Rasputin (played gleefully over the top by Christopher Lloyd and sung by Jim Cummings). And, of course, Rasputin has his cute animal sidekick in the form of an albino bat, Bartok (the always effective Hank Azaria). Rasputin wants revenge on the Romanoffs for his undead state and sets off to kill the princess. It should also be noted that Bernadette Peters and Angele Lansbury round out the voice cast in entertaining performances.

Okay, if you can put aside your feelings of misgivings regarding the animal sidekicks and revisionist history, there is much that is entertaining in this film. The score by Broadway veterans Aherns and Flaherty is probably one of the best ever composed for an animated movie. The script does provide action, adventure, romance, and comedy. It's probably the most human script directed by Bluth and Goldman. There is some spectacular animation, the runaway train scene stands out as truly effective.

There are drawbacks. It is trying too hard to out-Disney Disney, from the opening number to the very structure of the story. The computer animation isn't always well integrated. The music box never looks like it exists in the same reality as the animated characters and the afore-mentioned train sequence is obviously not cell animation. But these drawback are relatively minor compared to the overblown climax of the movie. Still, flaws aside, it does entertain. I have watched it several times and have definitely gotten my money's worth of this DVD.

The DVD ovvers you the option of fullscreen and letterbox presentation, a short featurette about the making of the movie, and a pair of sing-along sequences.

All in all, I recommend this movie to people who enjoy animated musicals. If you like this, you may also like Disney's "Beauty and the Beast" and "Hunchback of Notre Dame", "My Neighbor Totoro", Frank Oz's musical version of "Little Shop of Horrors", "The Iron Giant", "James and the Giant Peach", and "The Nightmare before Christmas".

(C)2001 Joe Edkin