'Rumpelstiltskin' may be a fairly slight story that doesn't really lend itself well to a feature film (the most being a half an hour episode of a series of of fairy tale adaptations), evident by the film version with Billy Barty, but it does have an unforgettable titular character (one of the most memorable in all literature), an interesting conflict and personally have always gotten out of it a valuable and important message of greed. It is one of the most best-known and most popular fairy tales for good reason.
There are though better adaptations than this. My personal favourite being the 'Faerie Tale Theatre' production, one of that show's (a great one) best. There are also far better 'Grimm Masterpiece Theater'/'Grimm Fairy Tale Classics' episode, if anything it's for me one of the weakest. Not because of it being terrible, was actually quite mixed or better said torn on it. There are good things with this 'Rumpelstiltskin', but also some big flaws.
Of course there are things done well. Pretty much all the original story elements are here in detail and spirit, the story not feeling slight or padded as the episode is a length that the original story is well suited to. The dialogue is both entertaining and unsettling, not going overboard on the simplicity or being too dark.
Found the miller's daughter to be affecting and worth rooting for. They get the chemistry between her and Rumpelstiltskin just about right, namely in the early scenes. Some of the music has some atmosphere, like at the end, the intro is endearing and the ending is as creepy as the one in the original story. As well as easily containing the episode's best animation. A few of of the voice actors are good, the narrator faring best.
Elsewhere, the animation was not great, flat and rushed looking and even the backgrounds lack their usual attention to detail. Most of the voice acting is also pretty weak, the male voice cast apart from the narrator being dull with one exception whose voice work was the other extreme.
Was underwhelmed by Rumpelstiltskin himself, apart from the aforementioned chemistry. His appearance was not grotesque enough as specified as well as stiff-looking, looking little different from other animated pixies/nymphs, and his voice work was too comic relief-like which took away from his personality.
All in all, somewhat of a mixed view on this. 6/10