Anastasia (1997)

I don't know about you, but I love rewatching my favourite movies from my childhood. Anastasia is one of those I was really obsessed with. I knew all the songs (in Italian), I loved Anastasia and the villain's sidekick. This is kind of your typical Disney princess flick, which means it too involves a romance so I decided to rewatch it this February (just in case you didn't know, I'm trying to watch and review as many romances as possible this month). 

The year is 1916. Grigori Rasputin (Christopher Lloyd/Jim Cummings) interrupts the grand ball celebrating the 300th anniversary of Romanov rule and kills all the Romanov but 8-year-old Grand Duchess Anastasia (Kristen Dunst/Lacey Chabert) who manages to escape. 10 years later, the Grand Duchess knows herself as Anja (Meg Ryan/Liz Callaway) and is determined to find out who her family is. With the help of two Russian con men, Dimitri (John Cusack/Jonathan Dokuchitz) and Vladimir (Kelsey Grammer), she goes to Paris to meet her grandmother (Angela Lansbury). But Rasputin finds out she's still alive and tries to stop her.

The story is not historically accurate but that's definitely not something people look for in an animated movie, it's pretty simple and there's really not much to say --a 30-minute short would have done the same job-- still it's pretty well thought out and it's entertaining and engaging.

Anyway, I think what I really used to like about Anastasia was the love story between Anja and Dimitri, and I still do. Sure, it's not the greatest love story ever, and it's the typical they hate each other but they're actually in love romance, but it's nice and quite heartwarming to see how love can change someone --Dimitri is just a con man looking for an easy way to make money but at the end he's a completely different man. Also, it's kinda sweet that a young boy saves a young girl's life and then they meet as adults and fall in love.

20th Century Fox

The reason why I find this film enjoyable is the characters. Once again, in terms of writing, these are not the best characters ever, but they are nice. Anastasia/Anja is a very likeable lead, Dimitri is so charming and Vladimir is just amusing and steals the show. However, my favourite character is and will always be Bartok, Rasputin's hilarious talking bat. Rasputin himself is a pretty good and fan villain too. Also, the cast, both those providing the talking voice and those providing the singing voice, does a great job. 

At last, the animation is still quite beautiful, especially the Russian scenery, and the songs are very beautiful as well, especially the poignant "Once Upon a December".