ANASTASIA
RATING: *** (out of ****)
20th Century Fox / 1:33 / 1997 / G (off-screen killings) Vocal Cast: Meg Ryan; John Cusack; Kelsey Grammar; Christopher Lloyd; Hank Azaria; Bernadette Peters; Angela Lansbury; Kirsten Dunst Directors: Don Bluth; Gary Goldman Screenplay: Susan Gauthier; Bruce Graham; Bob Tzudiker; Noni White
"Anastasia" marks 20th Century Fox's first feature-length foray into animated filmmaking, and while Disney still owns the field, they now have a reason to watch their backs. Quite an accomplished opus, "Anastasia" gets Fox off to a solid start despite its occasional flaws. The credit is probably due to the creative mind of Don Bluth, who with "The Land Before Time" and "An American Tail" has shown himself to be the most innovative non-Disney cartoon film-creator working today ... tankers like "Rock-a-Doodle" and "The Pebble and the Penguin" aside, of course.
"Anastasia" opens in 1916 St. Petersburg, where the Romanov dynasty is celebrating the 300th anniversary of its Russian rule. The party is crashed by evil sorcerer Rasputin (voiced by Christopher Lloyd), who has doomed his own soul for the power to destroy the family and returned from exile in order to use it. With the help of courageous servant boy Dimitri, young Princess Anastasia ("Interview With the Vampire"'s Kirsten Dunst) and her grandmother, the Dowager Empress Marie (Angela Lansbury), escape; Rasputin offers chase but ends up drowning in the icy waters of the Volga River. Anastasia and Marie make it to a train station, but the confusing mob scene tears them apart and leaves Anastasia lying on the boarding platform, unconscious and alone.
Jump forward into the 1920s, and Anastasia is now headstrong 18-year-old Anya (Meg Ryan) and has no idea of her true legacy. As fate would have it, she runs into an older version of Dimitri (John Cusack), now a con artist scanning the countryside for an Anastasia-lookalike that he can bring to Paris to appease Marie, who is still alive and consumed with a passion to find her long-lost granddaughter. Anya fits the bill perfectly -- although neither party realizes how perfectly. All of this Romanov commotion causes Rasputin's resurfacing; sure, he's literally in hell, but his spiritual state doesn't keep him from a connection with the outside world thanks to his batty bat sidekick Bartok (Hank Azaria).
As a history lesson, "Anastasia" is spotty and scant. An intriguing back story is paired with somewhat head-scratching development, mostly the fault of the film's villain -- Rasputin might be an entertaining guy to watch, but when it comes to supplying motivation, the movie is clueless. Why does he hate the Romanovs so much? The question is never adequately answered, and therefore we're spared a truly hissable bad guy. But let the record show that it's a risky venture for any studio to embrace fact-based occurrences in an animated film ("Pocahontus" certainly *is* Disney's dullest toon flick yet); when doing so, you run the risk of altering chronology so much that it becomes distracting.
But whatever "Anastasia" lacks in historical departments is made up for in sheer, splendid showmanship. This is one gorgeous movie, even when the animation is just a tad under the level established by Disney. The occasionally stiff look could be attributed to the animators' dedication to realism -- these characters are drawn to look somewhat more "human" than the Mouse's many curvy Prince Erics and Princess Jasmines. There are dazzling set pieces aplenty, including a dangerous dalliance on a runaway train and a ghostly ballroom dance sequence that's a true breath-taker. The songs are very adequate; while the number of true showstoppers is limited, the tunes that really work here are the more subtle ones. Marie and Anastasia's gentle ballad "Once Upon a December" is beautiful while Rasputin's anti-good rant "In the Dark of the Night" (with slimy cockroaches singing backup!) strains a little. Impressive vocal performances by the likes of Ryan and Cusack are an added treat; so's the Bartok-provided comic relief, which is funnier than it first seems.
Even if "Anastasia" is missing the emotional draw that Disney's semi-serious features ("Beauty and the Beast" and "The Hunchback of Notre Dame") have pulled off without a hitch, it's still got some powerful moments. And even if it's never as roaringly comic or colorful as Disney's lighter films ("Aladdin" and "Hercules"), it does have its bright spots. There's a little room for improvement, but not so much that really matters (although some children will likely be bored with its heavy dramatics) -- "Anastasia" is a beautiful, potent, graceful film. Unlike the leprosy-stricken Rasputin, it hardly ever loses its footing.
© 1997 Jamie Peck E-mail: jpeck1@gl.umbc.edu Visit the Reel Deal Online: http://www.gl.umbc.edu/~jpeck1/
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