I never get tired of this movie. Some people complain that it's not historically correct, which is true it isn't entirely correct, but if it was - it wouldn't make a very good KIDS movie would it! Too scary. This has just the right amount of scariness in it!
The voice cast is brilliant, Meg Ryan gives so much personality to Anastasia and makes her so likable! And John Cusack as Dimitri is perfect, and Dimitri's character is believable and endearing, and you can't help loving him even though he's a bit of a crook.
I don't think this movie got anywhere near as much credit as it deserved, it really just has the perfect recipe. The songs are lovely and memorable, i sing them constantly... the animation is ..well, not perfect! But that really adds to the character's believability if that even makes sense.. it's a style, and its really cool. I just love everything about this movie, can't speak highly enough of it.

I remember watching part of this film when I was in 1st grade when it was released. I was about 6 then. But I only saw up to before the train goes loopy and flys off the track. I recently saw the movie from beginning to end creds and totally loved it! I can still remember one particular song, 1) because I sang that song for the Christmas Concert at my school in 5th grade, 2) because I liked it. As a matter of fact, I am listening to the soundtrack as I am typing this. What brought me to remember this film and to write this review was my History class. We've just entered WWI and the Russian Revolution and then POP! Anastasia came to my head. This was an awesome movie and I would suggest people to watch it and love it or else. Pity me... I don't own the movie. I could always borrow my riend's but her's is in VHS and my VCR died:( I could always order it in dvd...[blah, blah, blah...].....
The soundtrack was beautiful. Personally I think that animated movies these days are *bleh*-- for lack of a better description. But this movie...wow. The music suited the film beyond well unlike other movies where the song and/or entire soundtrack was never specificly made for the film. That goes for live-action films to. They (whoever "they" may be) just stick a song into the movie and don't really spend time to make an original score to make the film amazing. Tragically Disney has recently been falling in my "Poor Animation" catagory.
What's also great are the voice actors. I absolutly love (and envy) Liz Callaway's singing for Anistasia. Just beautiful. And Bernadette Peters (as Sophie) was hilarious! But her singing is still great. Of course, she is a Broadway star.
What really ticks me off is the fact that people say that it's not historically correct. DUH! "Based on a true story." "BASED" being the key word meaning the makers of the film use a little bit of fact and the rest they can do anything to it! But even if the whole was historically correct, it would still be amazing.

"Anastasia" isn't a bad film, it's an OK film. But the fact that it is inspired on a real story makes it look dumb (Sorcerer Rasputin, for example) and that "we were better off with the Tsar" stuff. But it has positive points. For example: the songs. "Journey to the past", "At the beginnig" and "Once upon a December" were fine.
It should be watched at least once, then see if you can handle the dicomposing Rasputin and Bartok the bat. I know that Bartok had his own movie, but I haven't seen it yet.

I just discovered a new Disney Animated film! Actually I am well aware that Anastasia was produced by 20th Century Fox, but I am also sure that some reading this are scratching their heads and wondering if I just might be wrong. This film was released in 1997 a few months after Disney's Hercules, and collected a respectable $58 million domestically (by comparison Hercules took $99 million). Anastasia was directed by Don Bluth and Gary Goldman (not Coleman) who brought us The Land Before Time, The American Tail, and later Titan A.E. This film seems to have borrowed most heavily from the Disney cookbook as most of the Disney ingredients are here. Princess? Check. Evil supernatural villain? Check? Talking animal sidekick? Check. Musical performances? Check. But unlike most Disney films, this is set in the real world. 1920's Russia to be exact. I am not too clear on my 20th century Russian history, but I think there were some Bolsheviks, and a revolution, or something like that. While the ingredients are here, this film should not be dismissed as a Disney knock off. Its really a bit darker, and more real world based and brings its own flavor to the party. Having just seen it for the first time, it was not the girly saccharine fairy tale I was expecting.

Anastasia (the princess) is the daughter of the Romanovs, who were ousted from power. Being young during the revolution, and not knowing her true identity, she becomes part of a con to reunite with her Grandmother "posing" as the real Anastasia. Voiced by Kirsten Dunst (young) and Meg Ryan (older) Anastasia is a likeable character who makes this story worth telling. And like any good princess, she gets her fair share of glamorous gowns to model (dolls for sale?).

I am not sure how historically accurate this film is, but I am pretty sure that Rasputin the Mad Monk (the films villain) was not a zombie (but to be fair, I think I remember from History class that he was one tough dude to kill and on further investigation according to the wikipedia he survived cyanide poisoning, being shot three times, and being beaten only to finally drown while trying to claw his way out from under a sheet of ice). He is a great villain, fun to watch and just menacing enough to be a threat, though he doesn't monopolize the story-- which is a good thing. He drives the tension in a train wreck sequence and in a big fight at the end, but doesn't interfere from the truly dramatic moments such as the reunion between Anastasia and her grandmother.

In the film, Rasputin has an albino bat (talking sidekick) named Bartok, voiced by Moe the bartender, who was popular enough to have his own sequel, but I was underwhelmied by his performance. I am not even sure he was supposed to be comic relief. He just never approached funny. Besides, I am not sure what business a talking bat had in this film's realistic setting other than to meet the Disney film checklist.

Several good musical numbers performed by the characters are peppered through the film. They are not so much catchy as they are appropriate and mood developing, my favorite being the haunting Once upon a December. This songs tune is integral to the score, and comes from a music box which is a key plot element. So, while Anastasia may be Disneyesque in its use of music, the choices for songs are different and more suited to the film's darker edge than would be songs along the lines of Be Our Guest (and while Angela Lansbury voices a part in this film she doesn't sing but Frasier Crane's character does).

One note on the animation style-- It makes use of rotoscoping, a technique in which actors are filmed and animated over, to give the animation more realistic movements (this same tool was used much more noticeably in A-Ha's Take on me video). It's sort of a pre-motion capture technique, and also adds to the realistic feel of the film.

Rotten Tomatoes gives this film a generous 93. I would have to say that while I enjoyed it, Anastasia was not awe inspiring or anything like that. As a romantic drama I think it is more suited for women than men, but I feel no shame in giving Anastasia a B.

Ah, the story of Anastasia . . . I do believe that thanks to this film, people were actually wondering if the real Anastasia was still alive. Of course, this will never be known.

This is a total fantasy tale, based on a play version of the story about a young girl discovering her past and finding her family. With the added magic, the boy-toy conman, and the symbolic animal companion in the form of the puppy Pooka. The songs were good, especially "Journey to the Past" and "Once Upon a December".

The characters are each good and add their own little personality to the film. Anya is the star - an orphaned, headstrong girl who wishes to find her family - and Dimitri is the main male, with all of his secrets and charms. Rasputin gave the film its creepy factor as the rotting corpse of a sorceror who wants to destroy Anastasia for his own reasons. The other characters, to me, are not too major, but offer a mixed palette of different people and creatures.

The art and backgrounds are beautiful and the special effects are amazing and vibrant. The story, however, is the weak point. It's obvious what's going to happen, but it's good to see what happens, even though it never happened in real-life (because the princess was never found).

Other than that, Anastasia is a decently fun romp. It's worth a buy and several watches for the animation and the voice cast (which was fabulous BTW), but I hope the story doesn't bore you too much. It really could have been so much better storywise.

Three stars.

I didn't really care for this one all that much. I have to admit that I really enjoyed the character of Anastasia, and a few others. Overall though it just didn't seem to work. I really disliked the villians. With this movie the villian delved into the spirit side of things too much for me. Rasputin was disgusting with always falling apart in some slimy way. If they hadn't had Rasputin in there and had some other villia it would have been a lot better of a movie.
The songs however, were pretty good except for in the Dark of the Night. The score was also very good and the animation was great. It's ok for maybe a rent, but I wouldn't buy it.

I'm actually related to the real Anastasia, by marriage - can you believe it? Didn't think so, you peasants.

After half-watching this movie many times, I... half-watched it again - no, I'm kidding - and actually I was surprised that it was this good. I was disappointed, because it could have been so much better. The scattershot quality which Don Bluth had brought to just about everything he's made with the exception of his debut feature, 'Secret of NIMH' finally showed signs of almost coming together here. It was a long time between drinks. 'All Dogs go to Heaven' was the last film I've seen which showed sputters of greatness.

I feel that this one can best be assessed by the tried, true and corny method of asking what went right and what went wrong?

The Good: the film looks great. And not in the oversaturated richness of colours that Bluth has been known to splash around in the past. 'Anastasia' looks crisp, clean and deep, and the animation is excellant. The only real complaint (I wish I had a buck for every time I'd written this) are the 3D objects that don't quite belong. Anastasia is a really attractive and likeable, and un-sulky looking character - which is more than I can say for any of the Disney heroines from this period, except Jane in 'Tarzan'.

The story itself is basically really strong, and could have packed a lot more more emotional clout if it had been deployed a bit more conventionally. In fact I have to agree with Inkwolf to a degree that there's no particular reason this movie should have been animated - except that Bluth animates it really well.

Bartok is a quite enjoyable, original and surprisingly un-annoying sidekick (his most obvious analog is the bird from Aladdin, who is a quantuum leap more annoying)

The music - well, if you have to have songs in an animated feature, you could do worse than these. They work pretty well for the most part, and are sometimes rather operatic, rather like sung dialog than lyrics.

The not so good: whereas I don't have any real problem with Rasputin as a character, I have to wonder why the heck he's in the film in the first place. Did this film really need an un-dead sorcerer in it? Wasn't there plenty of dramatic potential in the quest-for-lost-family theme by itself? Never mind the historical absurdity of it all.

Which brings us to the real clanger. And I say this as a possible distant cousin of the main character. The whole portrayal of the Romanov Dynasty as some kind of benign monarchy which is overthrown because a nutcase sorcerer manages to brainwash the country - good God, where do I start? Boney M 's 'Rasputin' was more historically accurate than this. I think my objection is summed up by the opening scene, which is set in 1916, in the midst of a horrific war in which millions of Russians are dying on the battlefield, and there are the Royals swanning around at a New Year's Eve party as if they hadn't a care in the world. This didn't dispose me well towards them, and I had to convince myself that they were only pampered fools rather than actual parasites. And then this even more ludicrous scene in St Petersburg in 1927, where all the peasants are singing about how great things were back under the Tsar. Give me a break. Things were bleak before the uprising, and after.

So Don, here's your fatal flaw this time around - or one of them. Could you have told this story and avoided this nonsense. Could you have told it without even involving the Russian Royal Family and Rasputin at all? I'm sure you could have, or something like it.

Ah, well. It's not a great movie, but it showed that the spark hadn't died after all, and that Bluth still had the potential to make another great movie. But we're still waiting for it.

I love this movie. It's one of those movies I can watch over and over agian and it will never get old! I love the song she sings at the beginning... "Heart don't fail me now, courage don't desert me don't turn back now that we're here. People always say life is full of choices no one ever mentions fear..." Ah.. I love it and it always makes me cry (well so do most movies :) but still)

This movie is one of my favorites! The art is well done and the movie plays out in a way that you can enjoy. It has a good plot that includes witty lines and lovable songs that everyone can enjoy. It can be suspensful at times but not too much to scare children and has plenty of comic relief. I would suggest it to anyone who wants to see a fun movie.

Anastasia is the greatest movie I've ever seen !!! I love it since I've seen it at the cinema I was so enthousiastic ! I love Bluth & Goldman work and this movie shows what genius their are !
Everything we can want is on it : adventure, humor, mystery, fantasy and a the greatest and most beautiful love story !!!!
a cult movie you have to see it !