anyone shed any light on this movie...i see it comes out on dvd next week and am thinking about picking it up...tommy

I enjoyed it immensly when I rented it on the loathed VHS format. If you want to read my full review (written quite a while ago, click below). I'd recommend renting it first.

<p align="center">My Anastasia Review</p><a href="http://www.outermost.net/dvdlist.htm">Blake Kunisch</a> | <a href="mailto:[email protected]"><img src="http://www.outermost.net/images/email.gif" border=0></a> | <a href="http://www.dvdtalk.com/ubbcgi/ubbmisc.cgi?action=getbio&UserName=Blake"><img src="http://www.outermost.net/images/profile.gif" border=0></a> | <a href="http://www.outermost.net"><img src="http://www.outermost.net/images/house.gif" border=0></a>
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thanks blake,had some 15.00 test gc i needed to use and ran out of preorders so i`ll add this in...tommy

i saw it on the big screen & again recently on hbo or showtime. it is not a bad movie by any means. the animation is really nice but the movies itself does drag slightly. the music is okay but nothing special. definitely rent it first. if you have kids, they should like it.



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http://www.dvdtracker.com/~brianluvdvd

Nice colours, charming story and voice acting. Unusual for animation, this one was done in a 2.35:1 aspect ratio, so some sequences achieve that sweeping epic look quite well.

Now for the bad: This movie was made (relatively) on the cheap and fast, so corners were cut. The CG elements are very poorly integrated with the traditional animation. It doesn't look like a lot of time was spent trying to match the look of CG & regular. However, this is pretty easy to overlook as the CG is only used occasionally.

Second bad aspect: (DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT YOUR ENJOYMENT OF THE MOVIE FOREVER RUINED FOR YOU!)
They used a technique called rotoscoping heavily in this picture. Basically, it means they filmed a live person doing the movements and drew directly over those movements. I used to think the results of this looked very cool. The movement seemed very nuanced and human-like to me. However, someone then 'enlightened' me by saying it sucks due to how intensely jerky rotoscoped movements looked. Now, when I watch the movie, I REALLY notice it. Compare Anastasia or the John Cusack character (which are rotoscoped) to Cusack's big moustached friend voiced by TV's Frasier or to the villain (who are animated 'traditionally' I believe). The former two look like they're animated with with half the amount of frames as the latter. The latter seem to move far more smoothly and fluidly, though more exaggerated as well since they aren't copied from real people. When I watch it now, I find it very hard not to notice this. It's annoying. http://forum.dvdtalk.com/ubb/wink.gif