| I know, I should have known I would hate a Don Bluth movie, but it looked so promising. After some industry input from my animator friends, I can express my feelings more accurately, but please know that all the emotions were already there. |
| This movie is boring, horribly animated, and the villain could have been cut from the movie and nothing would change, plot wise. Meg Ryan should never ever be allowed to do voice over work again. The songs were short, weird and unhummable, expect the December song from the music box. The mix of computer animation and hand drawn was jarring. |
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| One would think that animation technology outside Orlando would be relatively even planed but the faces looked like they were underwater, the movements were clearly based on live action reference models (who I thought acted very well, actually - more natural movements than the similarly modeled Snow White), and did I mention how much I hated the way they overused computer pieces - in Aladdin, I had to look to see computer versus hand drawn, they fused so naturally - here the jerky hands hold the smoothly, eerily floating objects that didn't need to be CGI in the first place! |
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Hank Azaria's Bartok, John Cusack's Dimitri (I could guest host the Rosie O'Donnell show and just gush about both those guys!), Kelsey Grammer's Vladimir, Angela Lansbury's Dowager Duchess, and Christopher Lloyd's Random Rasputin were well voiced, acted to the limits of the script, and those who sang, did well. |
| The singing voice for Anya (I apologize, miss, for not getting your name - Bluth only features the talking voices in the picture gallery) was quite lovely. |
| I couldn't help but wish the movie had been live action all the way through. I did very much enjoy the fact that while they are in Paris, all the backgrounds are done in Impressionist style. PS The Romanovs were all shot to death in a field, not escaping, waving from a train. Don't tell the kiddies! |
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| Now my soapbox. I am all too cognizant of the state of live action musicals and animated movies as an art form and as a lucrative film investment. Animators are dying for work and all they have is claptrap like this and Quest for Camelot if they are lucky. Too many suits out there think all the world wants is an inane plot to justify the drawing of it, and that is enough. Kids have never been that stupid and they will never be. Disney is getting the short end with movies like Hercules and the Hunchback of Notre Dame - they modify the original story, I concede, but taken as individual pieces, both movies are very strong for adults and children. Most studios out there don't realize the cash cow for animation that is good. Has anyone noticed the ratings the Simpsons, King of the Hill, Nickelodeon cartoons, and South Park get? MAKE GOOD CARTOONS. |
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As for movie musicals, executives are constantly shocked when they change or take out the songs, alter the story, and pack it with dubbed over faces and why we think movie musicals don't work. People, they can work if the filmmaker understands the difference between stage and screen and the executives leave the masterwork alone. |
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Despite the regrettable cuts made for the movie, rent The Wiz and see what I am talking about. OK. GO see Anastasia to support to creation of animated movies, but better yet, write your local congressperson and demand that Hollywood (especially Don Bluth) be forbidden to screw the medium up any more
For all you Bartok fans out there, "Hey Fred, I need a tequila!" |
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