Continuations or further explorations of stories whether fictional or non-fictional can be a thought provoking concept. Normally, when this involves a side character becoming a main character it can be a high risk low reward effort. Side characters are meant for support or to be somewhat of a foil to either the protagonist or antagonist. They’re the ones that might be commenting on, asking or just plain making fun of decisions other characters make. For the movie of Anastasia (1997), this was more or less the role of Bartok the bat who hung alongside Rasputin. Weirdly though, after that film was released it was confirmed that Bartok was a popular enough character where they gave him his own movie. It is not bad but definitely doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Written by Jay Lacopo which was his first major film credit, tells the story of how Bartok got his full moniker. At a time before the Bolshevik revolution, Bartok the bat (Hank Azaria) was just an ordinary traveling street performer. Accompanied by Zozi (Kelsey Grammer), an anthropomorphic well-educated bear, the two are making ends meet by giving the townsfolk some entertainment, but this was just a stop for him. One night after the prince (Phillip Van Dyke) is kidnapped by the mystical witch Baba Yaga (Andrea Martin), the prince’s right hand royal advisor Ludmilla (Catherine O'Hara) asks Bartok to help rescue the prince. Topping it off, director’s Don Bluth and Gary Goldman return to direct their very own story continuation to the original Anastasia (1997). So it would seem like the pieces are aligned right? Not really.
Lacopo’s writing is probably the weakest element here and not so much of timelines making sense. The story is more like a backstory of Bartok’s origins, but it’s at a very surface level context. It’s one thing to introduce new characters but there should be a reason as to where they end up later. For example, Zozi the bear is funny to watch but there’s nothing showing where the character ends up or where they went in Anastasia (1997). The same could be said for others like Baba Yaga or Piloff (Jennifer Tilly), the witch’s companion. There not even a real understanding how Bartok even found his way to Rasputin where he’s introduced in Anastasia (1997). It just a bit of an odd side story that doesn’t make a full connection to the main story.
One plus side to this feature is that the run time is only one-hour long. This makes sense because it can be difficult to make a full length feature film on a side character having an all-out adventure of their own. So in case the viewer wants to finish watching but worries about the story reaching blockbuster runtimes of two and a half hours. The voice acting is also a commendable part of this film. Hank Azaria returning as Bartok is certainly needed as it would be odd having this spinoff film without him. It’s kind of weird to see Andrea Martin and Kelsey Grammer return to the franchise they belong to but as other characters. It is also fun to hear other voice actors like Diedrich Bader, Jennifer Tilly and even Tim Curry who is surprisingly not the villain.
Catherine O’Hara is also an interesting choice seeing that she doesn’t do that many voice roles. She was in Pippi Longstocking (1997) prior and went on to play voice roles in Chicken Little (2005) and Monster House (2006). Visually for a direct-to-video animated movie, the look is still very good compared to some of Disney’s early outsourced direct-to-video sequels. However, there are still some blatant animation issues in some scenes where movements are either choppy or almost completely static and it doesn’t look good. Lastly the musical score was composed by Stephen Flaherty. Mainly known for coming up with the songs to Anastasia, he was given full control over the instrumental side too which sounds very much like it belongs to the score composed by David Newman. No score exists sadly but it’s interesting to know that Flaherty was also the person behind Disney’s first two High School Musical films.
This isn’t a bad film by any means but the product doesn’t show a reason why it should exist other than if the viewer loves Bartok no holds bar. The music, voice acting and run time are decent but there’s some animation issues and the story doesn’t make total sense.
Points Earned --> 5:10
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