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Arguably one of the greatest cartoons ever made, Anastasia has a lot of heart and courage, as well as the usual silliness. If there's one thing I've learned in cartoons is that if you're having a good time, a dark shadow will quickly put an end to that happiness forever - or at-least until to the last 5 minutes of the cartoon where everything will turn out right once again. Same thing here: During a ball dance, Rasputin intervenes and places a curse that has the whole of the Romanov members killed except for one, Anastasia. She and her grandmamma are separated at the train station, a separation that lasts for 10 years. Did you see that guy on the train with grandmamma? He could see that the little girl could not reach her grandmamma and her could've helped her, but no! He didn't! If he had, there would've been no story. So basically, he is the real villain!
Moving on, Anastasia is then "resurrected" as street-smart lady and not very princess-like. One thing leads to another and she ends up in the company of two likable characters, Dmitri and Vlad, two con-men. When it comes to romance, cartoons all go in the same direction. This one went in that same direction, too, but on a different speed. It tried to fuse the romance seen in drama-movies into a cartoon world, and it excelled I must say. I enjoyed the connection between Dmitri and Anastasia (Anya), and the wise, affable Vlad and his voice-over by Kelsey Grammer. Bought a nice touch to an otherwise ordinary character. The rest of the film follows in an even pace and, unlike Pixar, who quip pop-culture references, and Disney, who, well, don't go beyond the screaming and no! no! no!, the script is believable. I'm not saying it was uber-realistic or anything, but for a cartoon world it was perfect. The animation was great, too. That was realistic, with all the movements and face expressions. All the long shots, especially the song scenes, were beautiful and enchanting, but not Disney-enchanting, but just.
However, I do have one complain, though: Rasputin. His sinister, dark and haunting quality - It just wasn't executed properly. I know, such a violent, serious, Pinhead-type character just wouldn't have worked in a cartoon that runs in this pace. Rasputin would've been a fish out of water, but I was really expecting to see some level of macabre or eerie. Instead, we get a buffoonish Captain Hook with a very long beard and body parts which fall off. It wasn't exactly 100% disappointing but it wasn't interesting either. I did end up enjoying Bartok, though!
From the voice-overs, all were great. Was it only me or did Meg Ryan sound somewhat like Mowgli from Jungle Book? No? Well, then I guess it was only me. John Cusack was good, too, but it was Kelsey Grammer who stole the show. Christopher Lloyd and Hank Azaria made a funny duo and provided quite-many interesting touches, especially Azaria.
In conclusion, Anastasia is a wonderful cartoon that is not as sentimental as Disney or quirky as Pixar. It is in-between and I would love to see Fox Animation Studios release another cartoon like this, not Titan A.E. A must-watch!
8.0/10
