When scrolling through the choices of animated movies on Disney+, you will see many familiar titles.  While there have been some notable upstarts in recent years, the Mouse remains the dominant production company putting out animated, feature length films.  For every Minions (2015) or Sing (2016), there are a legion of titles that are equally famous among Disney’s offerings, if not more so.  Today’s title is neither a Disney feature, nor noteworthy, yet you can find it among The Little Mermaid (1989), Finding Nemo (2003), or others of its ilk on the aforementioned streaming service.  I will be talking about Anastasia (1997), which was actually made by 20^th Century Fox before the entire company got absorbed into the rodent collective.  The only joy I got from watching it was from looking at its widget side-by-side with the others in the category and thinking to myself: one of these is not like the others!

For roughly the first fifteen minutes of Anastasia, I sat there with my mouth slightly agape, my eyebrows crammed together with incredulity, and my forehead furrowed.  This is because the narrator, the Dowager Empress, Marie Fedorovna Romanov (voiced by Angela Lansbury), proclaims it to be the “enchanted” year of 1916.  That is Russia in 1916, by the way.  This crashed against the steel wall of my history brain, and from this point on, I could not take the movie seriously.  In the middle, I had to fight off sleep.  By the end, I was counting the minutes until the merciful conclusion.  And there is my review!  Well, I guess I should continue.  Anyway, never mind the pain and suffering caused by Russia’s involvement in World War I.  At the glittering ball upon which we open, Anastasia “Anya” Romanov (voiced by Kirsten Dunst), is the belle.  She shares a connection with her grandmother, the Dowager Empress, who gives the little girl a special music box inscribed with the words “Together in Paris.”  The only one who is apparently immune to the Romanov joie de vivre is the so-called “holy man” Rasputin (voiced by Christopher Lloyd).  Rasputin is a once trusted advisor, but has been exiled from his privileged place.  He interrupts the party to give a public vow of vengeance.  He does so by essentially selling his soul, which, because of the intended audience, means spooky magic.  Yet, instead of directly using his new powers on the royal family, he starts the Russian Revolution.  Sigh.  As the rabble storm the palace, Anya goes back for the music box despite the Dowager Empress’ pleading.  Luckily, a servant boy named Dmitri (voiced by Glenn Walker Harris Jr.) is able to get them safely out of the palace.  As they flee, Rasputin catches up with them.  As he grabs Anya leg, the ice beneath him cracks and he drowns.  Unfortunately, this slows down Anya enough to where she cannot make the train that her family has boarded.  Instead, she trips and falls, banging her head and causing amnesia . . . for the next ten years.  It is just as well because the Romanovs were all shot to death (except the Dowager Empress, who was not present), though we see none of this in the movie.  They are just gone.  Meanwhile, again without mentioning it by name, the Soviet Union is carrying on with everyone dancing in the streets.  Still, there are memories of what it was like under imperial rule.  Keeping that memory alive is the Dowager Empress, who, from her new home in Paris, is quietly offering a huge sum of money for Anya’s return.  Hoping to collect the reward is a now grown-up Dmitri (voiced by John Cusack), who, along with an old palace associate, Vladimir “Vlad” Vasilovich (voiced by Kelsey Grammer), are trying to find somebody they can pass off as the lost princess.  Speaking of Anya (voiced by Meg Ryan), she has been raised in an orphanage.  One day she is told by the person in charge that she has been hired out to work in a fish market.  Instead of going to be a seafood handler, she gets a sign in the form of a stray dog she names Pooka and heads to St. Petersburg.  Of course, it is only a matter of time before she bumps into Dmitri and Vlad, who have taken up residence in the abandoned palace.  That is where they meet, and Dmitri almost immediately sees her as a ringer for the lost princess.  They are not the only one who notice Anya’s arrival.  Also hanging out in the palace is Rasputin’s zany bat minion Bartok (voiced by Hank Azaria).  No villain should have a zany minion, regardless of it being a talking bat, but I digress.  Bartok knows Anya is a Romanov because Rasputin’s magic revenge tube (I am not sure what else to call it) begins glowing green.  It then drags Bartok down to the netherworld to inform the undead Rasputin that Anya has turned up.  From there, it becomes a boring series of misadventures as Anya, Dmitri, and Vlad make their way to Paris to present her to the Dowager Empress.  Along the way, Rasputin uses his powers to try to finish what he started all those years ago.  All these attempts fail, and Rasputin decides he must magic himself into the real world and personally take care of the matter.  He gets to Paris on the heels of Dmitri successfully convincing the Dowager Empress to talk to Anya.  The former ruler of Russia had dealt with a series of impostors, but it is the medallion from the music box that convinces her of Anya’s authenticity.  Along the way, inevitably, Anya and Dmitri fall in love.  Because of those feelings, he turns down the money he is owed, an act that impresses the Dowager Empress.  Thus, on the verge of Anya being presented as the youngest remaining Romanov, her grandmother says that it is up to her to choose this life.  A moment of hesitation, and chasing after Pooka, brings her face-to-face with Rasputin.  Dmitri comes to help, but it is Anya that breaks the source of Rasputin’s power, and the Romanov curse to go with it.  The Dowager Empress is given one last look at her granddaughter as she sails away with Dmitri, who she has apparently eloped with right after defeating Rasputin.

Whenever a historian is watching a movie like Anastasia, the first thing he or she does is a little research as to who is the real jerk in this situation.  Of course, the wild inaccuracies are just that, as I found.  What is interesting is that no one at the time seemed to care, including the Russian government.  Fighting against such variables is nothing new for The Legionnaire.  Faith, especially as practiced by the Catholic Church, is something consistently portrayed improperly by Hollywood, as I have several times detailed.  I bristled at the labeling of Rasputin as a “holy man,” and his robes look vaguely like those you might see a monk wearing.  I do not know if there were too many others who noticed this feature, but it caught my attention.  The real person on which this character is based did have a connection to the Romanov family.  What he did not have was a position as a member of any kind of Russian Orthodox clergy.  Rasputin is one of the most mythologized characters in World History, and this is part of why the makers of this film can get away with such a portrayal.  He exercised an undue amount of influence over the royal family, which brought him a number enemies and eventually led to his assassination.  While there is some truth to the things of which he is accused, he was kept around by the Romanovs because they thought he could heal their sick son.  Such a healing never took place.  He was also not a sorcerer.  Rasputin may have been a pretty bad dude, but he was not a member of the undead.

Another reason for my disenchantment with Anastasia is the fact that it is a musical.  I have heard of people liking this film, perhaps because of this reason.  The only positive thing I can say about it is the quality of the animation.  Otherwise, I would not waste your time.  That is my job.