I'll start with a disclaimer: I'm biased, and I want to like this movie. However, it does fall short in many ways. The first American Tail had this Russian Jewish mouse family that emigrated to America in the East because calamitous reasons. A minor nitpick, but the premise of going West... wouldn't it have been shorter to go across the Pacific instead of circling round the world? This is easily overlooked, though, so moving on: the two biggest shortcomings of this movie are pacing and depth. At times, the movie moves too fast to be emotional, and its transitions are so jarring it's hard to get into it. It lacks the emotional and intellectual depth of the first movie altogether, the former in no small part due to the pacing issues and the latter because its moral is summed up in the standard "belief in oneself" hollow metaphorical cookie. As for the mouse family itself, the movie seems to have forgotten that everyone but the parents are Russian immigrants and Jewish besides. I'd like to know when Fievel stopped being Russian and immediately picked up Western cowboy mannerisms. A little too quick. I don't really care, but another minor nitpick is that the detail of the family being Jewish never pops up again. The animation is very different from the first movie, and it shows. Fievel no longer moves like a drunkard, but now moves like a sharp and witty action hero. There are many sections in which you can tell the animators had fun, at least, but there are some gags that probably don't fit (minor spoiler: dogfish). In short, this movie doesn't feel like the original hardly at all. Its patriotic themes are almost completely absent, being switched out in favour of a Western aesthetic. The returning characters are very different. Tiger is now clumsy in comical fashion (which is only occasionally funny), doesn't quite feel or move like the original. Even Fievel's friends Tony and Bridget are reduced to momentary cameos and play no part in the plot. However, Tanya is given much more character development, which was one of the brightest parts of the movie. Instead of a background character like in the first movie, she became a tritagonist of sorts, likable and memorable. Overall, it's an okay (by which I mean barely passable) movie in its own right. Its musical numbers (one of which is Tanya's) are somewhat memorable, pretty catchy, pleasant to listen to. Its characters are (mostly) okay, the plot is relatively original by American Tail standards. But in general, the movie suffers from being unimaginative and shallow. It inherits a good name and it does well for having these flaws, but it is not something you'll watch very often. Many won't rewatch it at all, most of all if they were hardcore fans of the original. Again, though, standing alone, it is actually not that bad as a movie. And upon further consideration, I will raise the movie a star's rating for its magnificent soundtrack (The Girl You Left Behind, Way Out West, and Rawhide are worthy of honourable mention).
