I was always a little sniffy about the sub-Disney films that Fox Animation made, such as "Prince of Egypt", "The Road to El Dorado" or "Titan AE" but given that since the Fox buyout they are now, technically Disney films themselves and one of the "Anastasia" has landed on Disney Plus.
Since the fall of the Russia Royal family, rumours of circulated that the Tsar's youngest daughter is still alive. A con-artist Dimitri (John Cusack) believes that he can make some money by travelling to Paris to convinces the Dowager Empress (Angela Lansbury) that his next girl is the right woman. He meets a woman straight out of an orphanage (Meg Ryan), who he believes bears a striking resemblance and who cannot remember her early childhood years. As they travel together, they come to believe that she might be the real thing, which raises the attention of the vengeful Rasputin (Christopher Lloyd).
As I said, I've always been a bit scornful about the Disney knock offs, but actually I thought that "Anastasia" was pretty good. The animation style has a very 'classic Disney' feel about it, which probable owes a lot to having Don Bluth as a director, who began is career working for Disney as an animator in the late 1970's, before leaving and directing "The Secret of Nimh" and "An American Tail". His co-director on this film, Gary Goldman also worked as an animator at Disney in the late 70's. Together they produce a film style that's certainly everybit as visually strong as Disney was at the time.
The vocal performances and score are good too. Angela Lansbury provides another link to the Disney world, but she's joined by Meg Ryan and John Cusack as the leads and supporting performances from Kelsey Grammer, Christopher Lloyd, Hank Azaria and Bernadette Peters. The musical combination of Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens haven't really produced a classic movie score since, but they have worked consistently and won awards on Broadway. I felt the songs here were particularly strong and were nominated for the academy awards in 1998.
Storyline wise it was a decent adventure. Maybe a touch predictable and perhaps the ending felt a little rushed, the protagonists are unaware that Rasputin even exists until the last ten minutes. But certainly, good enough and overall, the movie is much better than I was anticipating.
Since the fall of the Russia Royal family, rumours of circulated that the Tsar's youngest daughter is still alive. A con-artist Dimitri (John Cusack) believes that he can make some money by travelling to Paris to convinces the Dowager Empress (Angela Lansbury) that his next girl is the right woman. He meets a woman straight out of an orphanage (Meg Ryan), who he believes bears a striking resemblance and who cannot remember her early childhood years. As they travel together, they come to believe that she might be the real thing, which raises the attention of the vengeful Rasputin (Christopher Lloyd).
As I said, I've always been a bit scornful about the Disney knock offs, but actually I thought that "Anastasia" was pretty good. The animation style has a very 'classic Disney' feel about it, which probable owes a lot to having Don Bluth as a director, who began is career working for Disney as an animator in the late 1970's, before leaving and directing "The Secret of Nimh" and "An American Tail". His co-director on this film, Gary Goldman also worked as an animator at Disney in the late 70's. Together they produce a film style that's certainly everybit as visually strong as Disney was at the time.
The vocal performances and score are good too. Angela Lansbury provides another link to the Disney world, but she's joined by Meg Ryan and John Cusack as the leads and supporting performances from Kelsey Grammer, Christopher Lloyd, Hank Azaria and Bernadette Peters. The musical combination of Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens haven't really produced a classic movie score since, but they have worked consistently and won awards on Broadway. I felt the songs here were particularly strong and were nominated for the academy awards in 1998.
Storyline wise it was a decent adventure. Maybe a touch predictable and perhaps the ending felt a little rushed, the protagonists are unaware that Rasputin even exists until the last ten minutes. But certainly, good enough and overall, the movie is much better than I was anticipating.