Anastasia
a review
By Jeremiah Rickert
I caught the late showing of Anastasia at one of my favorite theaters, the Westgate in Beaverton, Oregon. It is the theater where as a lad of three, I stood on the seat and shot Darth Vader with my green spark gun, but I digress. Anastasia is the first animated production of Fox Family Films, and for the most part it is a pretty good offering. The man behind it is Don Bluth, who has put out a fairly steady stream of animated entertainment, including The Secret of Nimh, An American Tail, and All Dogs Go To Heaven, just to name a few. None of the above have really competed with concurrent Disney offerings, but this latest one, in my opinion, outshines two of the last three Disney Animated films. (Hercules and Pocahontas). At first glance, it seemed that Fox and Bluth were trying to emulate their competitors style. They began to market Anastasia with teasers and posters and such practically a year ago. A few months later, I recall seeing a trailer with partially completed animation (sound familiar?), and then the blitz started. It's the old jam it down our throats campaign, a bit softer than the Disney bombardment, but there nonetheless. The story concerns a rabidly revenge-minded Rasputin (Snickered and Growled wonderfully by Chistopher Lloyd), who in an effort for repaying the Tsar of Russia for disowning and trying to have him killed (assuming they've stuck to history of course, this is never fully explained), curses the royal family to be killed. He then sells his soul to the forces of Darkness in order that this curse be carried out. The curse then seems to cause the once prosperous and placid peoples of the empire to become agitated and angry towards the imperial family, finally culminating in the bloody Russian Revolution. I thought that history should have been a bit more elaborated upon, simply because at least kids would "learn" something, but it was not to be. The family then attempts to escape, but they are all killed save the mother of the Tsar (voiced by Angela Lansbury), and his Daughter Anastasia, however, she fails to catch the last train out of St. Petersburg, and is coldcocked to the ground, becoming an orphan. 10 years later, now grown, she yearns to find out who she is, and whether she actually has family, thus begins the adventure. She meets up with a swindler named Dmitri and his sidekick Vlad (played by John Cusack and Kellsey Grammer respectively) who attempt to pass her off as the Grand Duchess Anastasia in order to receive the 10million Ruble reward. And of course, Rasputin returns to finish the job. The pieces are all in place, and how they play out is rather entertaining. The story kept me interested and definitely entertained, the songs were passable, but not very memorable. If it wasn't for the fact that the strongest song was in the credits, I would have probably forgotten it. The Animation was good, but incosistent, at times I found it breathtaking, particularly during the "paris" song, when the city is laid out like an Impressionist painting. The human movements were as good as, in some cases more realistic than, those of Disney characters, except for their faces. Their faces lacked detail and their lips rarely moved in synch with their lines and songs. This is the biggest flaw in the film, it bothered me throughout the whole thing. The computer animation also didn't blend in as well as it could have, sometimes it stuck out like a sore thumb, particularly the cars driving around paris. The computerized "camera" movement in the Dowager's townhouse looked too rigid and unnatural. Overall, however, I was entertained, the story was interesting, and actually more "Grown-up" than I expected. I think it would be scary in some respects for young kids. I was reminded of The Black Cauldron a bit, where armies of the dead poured from the Cauldron, summoned by the Horn King, and how a lot of families were put off by that. I would be surprised if Anastaisa grosses in the Disney territory for this very reason. The comic foil, Bartok, unfortunately has all of his best lines stuck in the trailers, as it often is with these things, and really didn't seem much more as an attempt to garner a few laughs. This sounds strange, but The parrot in Alladin as played by Gilbert Gottfried was a more well-rounded character than Bartok.
Out of the $6.50 I paid for it, it was worth $5
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