Anastasia

Rating:
Summary: Love this movie...
Review: First of all, if we're talking about technical accuracy, this isn't a Disney movie. It's Fox Home Entertainment. Don Bluth (An American Tail, The Secret of NIMH, Titan AE - all not Disney) hasn't worked for Disney in ages, as far as I know. Second, it's fiction. If you're looking for a historical account, this isn't it. Good parents explain the difference between fiction and fact to their children, and smart adults figure it out on their own.

All that aside, I (an adult), really enjoy this movie. The heroine is intelligent, funny, and perfectly capable of standing on her own two feet. She's vulnerable, but strong... a great "role model". The supposedly useless villain has some clever, if disgusting, scenes and lines. The cute sidekick (a fruit bat) nearly steals the movie! The soundtrack has some wonderful sing-along songs, the dialogue is quick, and the animation is strong (although not incredible). The only caution I have is that I wouldn't recommend the movie for small children... there are some scenes that will probably scare them to death (notably a creepy dream sequence, and a disturbing rotting-body song and dance by the villain).

If you like animation, particularly of the musical sort (i.e. Beauty and the Beast, Lion King, An American Tail), I highly recommend this one. It's just plain fun

Rating:
Summary: Just do not expect historical accuracy in a cartoon musical
Review: "Anastasia" is a animated musical that works despite some serious problems fundamental to the story for anybody who knows anything about Russian history. The legend of Anastasia has in roots in a historical truth: that when the Communists executed the Romanovs and gunned them down, the young Grand Duchess was not shot; she fainted. When it was discovered she was still alive she was clubbed and bayoneted to death. But the "truth" remains, she was not shot dead with the rest of her family. In this version that issued is rendered moot because the young Anastasia never joins her parents as they fled St. Petersburg. However, the greatest historical liberty is the idea that the Russian Revolution was the result of a curse the mad monk Gregorei Rasputin laid on the Romanovs. Forget Lenin and the Communists overthrowing the Czar; it was a crazy monk and his friend, an albino bat named Bartok.

However, "Anastasia" has several things working in its favor to counter-attack this nonsense. First, there is the haunting "Once Upon a December," which carries the mood of the story perfectly and comes into play at several key moments in the film. The rest of the music is above average and avoids cuteness for the most part (the bad guys get the fun song with "In the Dark of the Night"), but "Once Upon a December" is musically the cornerstone of the whole film. Second, there is the wonderful vocal work by Kelsey Grammer and Angela Landsbury as the supporting characters Vladimir and the Dowager Empress Marie; they are the pair who provide the film with its heart while Anna and Dmitri wait for their brains to catch up with their hearts. Third, in true giant cartoon movie style, the film reduces everything to the fundamental desire to go home and be part of a family.

Ultimately, the backbone of the story is more the 1956 Ingrid Bergman film version of the "Anastasia" story than history: a con artist wants to earn the reward for finding the lost heiress to the Russian thrown and turns an amnesia victim into Anastasia only to discover that she is the real thing and that he is in love with her. Then basically they throw in the standard evil person trying to keep the princess and her boyfriend apart (think Disney's "Sleeping Beauty" except instead of an evil queen it is a mad monk and instead of a giant dragon there is a small albino bat and the princess is really a Grand Duchess and the prince is now a former servant boy, but other than that they are remarkably the same). Besides, kids like this film and they should be allowed to do so for a few years before they discover they can not learn history from movies (and should never let watching a movie substitute for reading an assigned book).

Rating:
Summary: Not historicaly correct, but a great movie overall
Review: When I first saw it in the theaters, I fell asleep. I'm not sure if the movie got to boring, or if I was just tired. But anyways, on to the movie:

Story: Anastasia, her grandmother, and the rest of the Romanov family are enjoying a royal ball in their palace. But alas, there's always a bad guy,.......Rasputin in this case. He says that Anastasia's whole family will die soon, and that happens (off screen of course). Well, everybody except for Anastasia and her grandma. Her grandma escapes to Paris. "Anya" falls off a train, hits her head, and ends up in an orphanage. 10 years later, two conmen named Dimitri and Vladamer are "collecting" girls that look/act like Anastasia. This is because Marie (Anya's grandma) is holding a grand reward of 10 million rubels for anyone who finds her lost granddaughter. And Anastasia? She is finally released from the orphanage. But instead of going "fishing" like the lady at the orphanage tells her to, she goes to St. Petersburg to find her family. Following her is the undead Rasputin (ha, and you thought he was dead). He's trying to get revenge since Anya lived. The rest of the story follows the journey's of Anastasia, and how she finds her grandmama.

As for the historical record? Well, Rasputin was actually a "friend of the family" as you might call him. He helped to cure little Alex, Anastasia's brother, from a fever. From what I've heard, I guess Anya's whole family (including her) was killed. Not a very happy ending is it? Of course, they can't let the kids know this, so it's all "re-arranged". As for Pooka (the dog), who knows if the Romanov family had a dog or not. Dimitri? He looks suspiciously like Alex dosn't he? And what about Bartok (the bat)? Of course, he is purely fictional. I have to admit that he seemed like the main character more than Anya, since he had the most "personality". Kind of a cute little guy actually.

Overall, it's fun, cute, and whimsicall. Sounds like a kids movie dosn't it? That's because it is!! But all in all, I think you'd enjoy it.

Rating:
Summary: It almost worked...
Review: Anastasia almost succeeded at being a great piece of animated entertainment along side such films as Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King. What went wrong? The entire concept! With all his evil powers and schemeing Rasputin can't kill Anastasia. How is this so? If he can send evil demons to dismantle a train surely he can drop a piano on our heroine. I guess villians aren't as smart as they use to be. The songs work well except for the possible exceptions of the intro. A guy singing in his underwear? Whats up with that? Did Rasputin really need singing bugs to back him up? No. Other than that I did enjoy the film. But I have to add this as a final note. Did it have to be based on the life of Anastasia? Couldn't it be reworked under a different name? Oh well, I'll just wait for Selena: The animated film. Can't wait to see the evil yolanda singing and dancing!

Rating:
Summary: You'll love Anastasia! It has great songs and excitement!!!!
Review: "Anastasia" is my 2nd favorite Disney Animation movie (My most favorite one is "The Quest for Camelot")!! It's got fun and lovely songs, very nice animation characters, and lots of excitement! This movie is great to watch with your family.

This movie tells of the lost Russian princess Anastasia and her goal to find her true identity and how her family was killed by the curse of the evil sorceror, Rasputin (The revolution was the curse). When the revolution started in Russia, Anastasia, the royal family's youngest daugther, escapes barely with her life, but loses her memory when she tried to get on the train to Paris with her royal Grandmother. Anastasia falls from the train and hits her head but lives.

Demetre, who was the kitchen boy when the fateful day had happened,and his assistant, Vladimer hears that the Empress(which is the Grandmother) offers a huge amount of money for the one who finds her lost Russian princess, Anastasia. Demetree and Vladimer tries to find someone who looks like Anastasia to fool the Empress and get away with the money. They meet Anastasia, who calls herself Ania, and she is trying to find a way to get to Paris. The reason she wants to go to Paris is because her Grandmother had given her a music box with a key to make the music play.Ania (or Anastasia) has the key but does not remember how she had gotten it there or what it was for. On the key was an inscription: Together in Paris. Demetre and Vladimer is very suprised at Ania's likeness with Anastasia and 'tricks' her into pretending like Anastasia. They go off to Paris together but little do they know that Rasputin was still alive (but was falling apart into pieces because he had sold his soul to destroy the royal Russian family!) and had sent his evil minions to kill Anastasia. For if Anastasia was killed, Rasputin would no longer be 'falling apart'.

Can Anastasia and her 'friends' escape from the ghostly demons? Would Anastasia be able to recover her true identily?

I love this movie and it's wonderful to watch again and again! In my opinion, I think this movie had the best animation. I especially liked Rasputin's assistant, Bartok the Bat. Bartok wasn't really bad. I also liked Demetre, even though he WAS rather greedy at first, he became one of the heros in this movie. I very much recommend you to watch it!

Rating:
Summary: My daughter & I love this movie!!! :)
Review: I have never written a review, but felt compelled to do so when I read the mediocre reviews Anastasia had received so far. My daughter & I first saw Anastasia in the movie theater & we LOVED it!...the music is some of the best I have ever heard (it is up there with Beauty & the Beast and Lion King.) There was a song writer and lyricist who wrote all of the songs and they did an awesome job! We bought the music CD after seeing the movie & we still listen to it. The movie was great also (the Rasputin character was a little out there & seemed cartoonish, but every good movie has an evil bad guy.) The detailed palace scenes and the rest of the movie was spectacular. The rest didn't seem cartoonish at all, but very real. And who goes to the movies to see reality, we go to see a happy ending!! I recommend this movie to any family with a 7 to 13 year old girl...and watch it with her, you will enjoy it too :)

Another favorite of ours is Drew Barrymore in Everafter. Five Stars on that one too.

Rating:
Summary: BEST MOVIE, BASED ON REALITY!
Review: I THOUGHT THE FILM WAS EXCITING, JOYFUL,AND ACOMPLISHED A TRUE TO LIFE STORY, FULL OF ACTION!
I OWN THE MOVIE AND WATCH IT ONCE A WEEK TO REMIND MYSELF WHAT KIND OF A COUNTRY I LIVE IN ( CANDADA ). I WOULD HAVE TO SAY THAT RASPUTIN IS MY FAVORITE CHARACTER, AND IS MY HERO!
JUST PUT YOURSELF IN RASPUTIN'S SHOES,HE WAS DETERMINED, COURAGES, DEDICATIVE, AND RESPONSIBLE. YOU COULD SAY THE BARTOK IS HIS CONSCIENCE.FOR EXAMPLE; WHEN HE SAYS:
" COME ON, FOR A MINUTE THERE YOU HAD YOUR OLD SPARK BACK."
WAS SOMETHING COMFORTING TO TELL RASPUTIN WHEN HE WOKE UP FROM DOWN BELOW ( HELL ).
I ALSO THINK THE SETTING IS TRUE ( AND WHERE RASPUTIN WAS BORN, RUSSIA).THAT IS WHY I RATED THIS FILM "5 STARS".
I THINK THAT THIS MOVIE DESERVES TO BE WORTH AT LEAST $ 50.OO IN ROALTY!

Rating:
Summary: Great music and a good toon.
Review: Really as a cartoon goes this is one of my favorite. Sure it's not historically accurate, but did it ever claim to be? Now maybe I could understand people taking stars away from it if it was claiming to be based on a true story, but it is not. So rate it for the fiction it is and not its historical accuracy.
Overall this cartoon really is done quite well. There is not really any sore points for the voice acting something that can kill toons. The songs are really amazing. Although there are other great songs on the movie the only one I can think of is "In the Dark of the Night" Really a catchy song, but I could swear I've heard a certain part of it before, but I can't think of where it's from. That whole "Come my minions rise for your master..." bit. Anyway the music is superb and catchy. Sounds a little bit better on VHS than DVD because the DVD drowns out the voices. The characters in this are cool as well there really isn't anyone that ruins the movie. One of the only problems I have is the lack fo imagination in characters nearing the end of the movie in Paris, almost every female character resembles anastasia heavily with a few quirky shapes thrown in for differences. And the fact that despite all of Rasputin's power he still can't kill Anastasia, but then again look at all the cartoons with happy endings. Almost every single movie throws in things that probably wouldn't have happened to make it seem like Love triumphs all, even the most horrid and dangerous of foes cannot overcome the power of love. Granted it's cheesy, but hey that's most movies for you.

Rating:
Summary: Come on, this is dumb
Review: Okay, all you voters out there, get your clicker fingers ready for that not helpful button. I don't care.
This movie is ridiculous. As people have mentioned before, a lot of the details are laughably inaccurate, but that is allowable for a kid's movie. What I think is really stupid is that this movie is based on real life, tragic events that happened not even a hundred years ago.
It makes me think of that song that our kids sing now "Ring around the rosy." Remember the significance of that? It's about the plague, right? So what's next? A full length animated feature about the Holocaust with a singing dancing Hitler taking his prisoners to go "take a shower." Who destroys him, Florence Nightingale?
Maybe I'm being too critical, but this movie is really ridiculous. I admit that it was a noble attempt at a story and the animation and even the music is rather good, hence the 3 stars. I also like Meg Ryan, and her acting was impressive as always.
It just had one thing holding it back-the plot.
I almost blew chunks at that scene with Rasputin dropping limbs in purgatory.
P.S. This wasn't made by Disney

Rating:
Summary: Killer Movie!
Review: This movie is the best for all kid audenciens!!!!