This is the animated version of the legend of Anastasia, the "lost" grand duchess of Imperial Russia.  Anya, a girl with no memory of her family, meets Dimitri, a con artist bent of winning the million ruble prize of reuniting Anastasia with her grandmother in Paris.  Their plans are complicated when Rasputin, the man who prophesied the fall of the Romanov dynasty, returns from the dead to destroy her as the last remnant of the Romanovs.

Availability:
Two VHS versions:  Regular and Widescreen

Cast/Crew:
Don Bluth                                Director
        An American Tail
        All Dogs Go To Heaven
        Thumbelina
        Rockadoodle

Meg Ryan                                Anya/Anastasia
        Innerspace

John Cusack                             Dimitri
        Better Off Dead
        Con Air
        One Crazy Summer
        Say Anything
        Grosse Point Blank
        Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

Kelsey Grammar                      Vladimir
        Cheers (television)
        Frasier (television)
        Down Periscope

Christoper Lloyd                      Rasputin
        The Dream Team
        Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
        Addams Family
        Addams Family Values
        Camp Nowhere
        Back to the Future Trilogy

Harry Shearer                           Bartok
        The Simpsons (television)
        Godzilla (1998)

Angela Lansbury                      Grandmother
        Bedknobs and Broomsticks
        Beauty and the Beast
        Murder She Wrote (television)

Miscellaneous:
   This was the first film produced in Fox's Arizona Studios, as well as the first Bluth Film to use the computerized colorization process.

MPAA Rating:
    G  Animated violence, dark themes

My Rating:
        This was a fun ride.  My only problem with it was the Rasputin character.  It seems as if no believable antagonist could be created, and his confrontations with Anastasia seem strained at times.  Lloyd does a good job with the character.  The problem lies with the story, not the characterization.
****
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