I loved this movie as a kid, so I thought I would re-watch it. Thankfully that wasn't a mistake. Though the movie is not as good as I remember it is still pretty good. The plot is kind of dumb, and some of the songs miss, but it is visually stunning. All the characters motion looks great and the landscapes are fantastic. Most of the songs are quite good, and the voice actors do a fine job (despite being screen actors by trade).
This movie holds up, at least for me. It might be nostalgia (probably is).

Re-watched this for the first time as an adult last weekend, I wasn't disappointed. I used to be obsessed with this film when it came out, I had the doll, sang the songs, and I can still see why.. it was truly enchanting, the Rasputin scenes were suitable creepy, and I felt the emotion at the ending (don't want to spoil it!)

I love this movie! Calling this a cartoon makes me feel ashamed, so I ended up adding it to two lists. Everything about it was **perfect**. The music, the **animation**, the _animated_ emotions, the fluid movements, the setting and storyline, and EVERYTHING in between! I loved Anya and Dimitri's duo dynamic, both before and after; not to mention Vlad and Pooka's chemistry was the best cute relief!

The score-reducers were the smaller details, like how [spoiler]Dimitry accepted his love for Anya only after her "transformation" into a princess[/spoiler] and subsequently, [spoiler]how his behaviour towards her also made a 180-degree spin[/spoiler]. But given the time during which this movie is set and given all other specifics, I can understand how [spoiler]his behaviour[/spoiler] was not really offensive, but rather quite understandable. So that brings me back to where I started: this movie is perfection!

>Must watch for all age groups!

Here's a little piece I wrote for the website, MovieMaker:

_Anastasia_ (1997) was one of the first animated films that made me tear up as a teenager when it aired on FOX or hit home video. Not even _The Lion King_ nor _Bambi_ did it, but oddly enough until a certain scene in _Anastasia_ where the lead male character, Dimitri, a con man who later refuses to take the reward from the royal empress after rescuing her granddaughter, Anastasia. It was the very act of selflessness that really got me, after knowing the journey the two had gone through together. I had only known greed prior to seeing this film, but now I know better. Although, I had not seen the 1956 live-action version starring _The King and I actor_, Yul Brynner, but I'd like to know how that story differs. There have been other films along the way, both live-action and animated, many of which have influenced me and shaped who I am today, and helped me appreciate the medium.

Dimitri is THE MAN :weary::weary: Also, Bartok asking Rasputin to check his blood pressure and find a good life is just funny and endearing

The rotoscoping and poor 2D integration into 3D is nauseating at times, but I liked the main dynamic a lot. Rasputin was meh and that final confrontation was unnecessary.

I'm conflicted about this movie. On the one hand there is a compelling story about the Romanovs, decent dialogue, the enchanting imagery I enjoy from Don Bluth animation (though the drawing quality in this one can be inconsistent—especially the human faces), and two good songs.

On the other hand, the plot can be quite nonsensical and the narrative distinctly lacks a sense of scope; it feels like they've tried to cram too many genres into one film, forcing the writing into a corner where it had to be dumbed down to drive the story forward. The supernatural elements especially, are a fifth wheel and out place with the rest of the story; Rasputin could easily have been portrayed as a cruel man plotting his revenge using his wits and social standing—instead of this weird undead sorcerer thing—which would make him a more frightening and memorable villain than this chump that ends up being just an annoyance and trivial to get rid of. Oddly enough, the supernatural aspect wasn't even leveraged to explain Anastasia's memory loss, which among other plot contrivances, remains a point of ambiguity to the end.

What a beautiful journey! They dance, they sing, they sad, they love, it's so unDisney, so life-real.

Animation of the characters looks too real at times. Beautiful and stunning from start to finish.

In The Dark of the Night is one of the best villain songs in my opinion

Sweet movie, even with a basic story it was easy to grow attached to the characters because of the nicely written dialogue and the expressive animation, and the songs were great! It really did well as a musical. The villain was very fun too with how his body parts kept coming apart, I can see the animators had a ton of fun with this one. Visually it was also interesting, because this movie both has the extremely fluid animation you know from early Disney but you can see too that this movie was drawn digitally and there are attempts at utilizing cg and digital photography here. They were some parts where it worked surprisingly well, sometimes not - The final fight for example, looked a bit jarring.

Loved this film as a kid. Still love it as an adult. My politics and some annoyances with the historical artistic license are pretty much the only things that take me out of it, and really the political issues are only in the first 10 minutes. Great music, great animation, decent voice acting even though its celebs instead of pros (especially Kelsey Grammer and Christopher Lloyd), and an enjoyable if somewhat cliche'd plot. "In the Dark of the Night" will always be one of my favorite villain songs.

This is the kind of film you enjoy as a kid and then rewatch it to find yourself really annoyed by the made up history. But anyway... good songs.