Anastasia

Anastasia was a young girl, the youngest of the Romanov children and a member of the Russian Aristocracy. The Romanovs successfully and maliciously squeezed Russia for 300 years until their starving "subjects" rose in 1918.

Then the murder of the Romanovs and the Russian Revolution began.

But did a Romanov child survive? In the decades that followed was there a Grand Duchess Anastasia still alive in Paris? Billions of roubles could well have been at stake.

And anyway people love princesses and myths.

Anastasia, as could be expected, serves up a Disneyland, sanitised, blinkered version of the pain and corruption that allows mobs like the Romanovs to prosper, but let's forget about all of that. Like we're supposed to!

Digital technology has changed the look of animated films rapidly in the last few years, but Anastasia has the look of the pre digital days, and that's no criticism.

The new monsters and other wonders we have lurching across our cinema screens are after all no guarantee of entertainment. Consider the debacle of Godzilla.

Anastasia was made mostly in Ireland as Fox Studio's opening shot across the bows of the Walt Disney juggernaught and is in the old, Snow White, Fantasia soft focus style rather than the crisp computer generated images which are all the rage these days.

Anastasia shows that bustle and noise alone, which seems to be all that films like Godzilla rely on, won't guarantee a satisfying movie.

But good songs, sensitive voicings, enchanting drawing and sharp editing will. Meg Ryan (the older Anastasia), John Cusack as Dimitri, Kelsey Grammer as Vladimir, Christopher Lloyd as Rasputin, Angela Lansbury as Dowager Empress Marie and the wonderful Hank Azaria as Bartok the Jewish/Russian albino bat prove that.

Hank Azaria is in fact the only reason you might want to see Godzilla (he plays Animal in Godzilla). He voices many of the voices on The Simpsons, was the houseboy in The Birdcage and a detective in Grosse Pointe Blank. He was also in Heat and Quiz Show and is simply a terrific actor. His Bartok in Anastasia is quietly hilarious. Hats off as well of course to the animators of Bartok.

Meg Ryan doesn't sing for Anastasia. The talents of Liz Callaway, a Broadway singing star sings beautifully in Anastasia. And the music score includes outstanding material, tunes that I found appealing, and I'm no fan of Broadway show tunes.

After an initial long cringe to do with the politics of Anastasia, the film settled to become an engaging tale of romance, and a fairly decent flick to take the children to.