BEFORE: Speaking of animated films set in Eastern Europe that have a vague horror feel to them... This is a direct-to-video sequel (prequel?) to "Anastasia", but the Fox Movie Channel was running it the same week that another channel was running that film, so I figured they'd go together. No John Cusack tonight, but he'll return tomorrow - fortunately he co-starred in "America's Sweethearts" with Hank Azaria, who voices Bartok, so there's your link.
THE PLOT: Russia is being terrorized by an evil witch known as Baba Yaga; the only one who is not afraid of her is Bartok the Magnificent.
AFTER: Animator Don Bluth is no stranger to the countdown, since I've watched "An American Tail", "All Dogs Go to Heaven", "The Land Before Time", and "Titan A.E.". But it seems he either loses interest in sequels, or perhaps is not offered a chance to work on them. This is the rare case where he also directed the spin-off movie as well - make of that what you will.
I worried about watching this film before "Anastasia", but it turns out that it IS a prequel, detailing the back-story of Bartok before the events of that film. So, my instinct to watch it first turned out to be spot-on.
Bartok the bat starts out in a traveling circus of sorts - it's more like a one-man show, detailing his brave exploits, except he also works with a partner, a bear who attacks the show so that Bartok can pretend to subdue him. That's about all the action the bear character gets - the rest of the film he doesn't do very much, so it falls to Bartok to perform the heroic deeds. His reputation makes him the perfect choice to track down the missing czar prince by taking on the evil sorceress Baba Yaga.
Instead of battling her, though, he pretty much ends up running errands for her, only to get totally Super Mario'd when he finds out the prince is in another castle. I never really found Baba Yaga to be that scary, maybe she's scarier in the original European stories, and softened here. So, her house has legs - how does that work? Does she have to chase after it a lot, or does that just make it easier when she wants to move?
The songs here were sort of servicable, not really standouts, but they weren't long enough to get annoying either.
Also starring the voices of Kelsey Grammer (last heard in "Teacher's Pet"), Andrea Martin (last heard in "The Secret of NIMH 2"), Catherine O'Hara (last heard in "Where the Wild Things Are"), Tim Curry (last seen in "Muppet Treasure Island"), Jennifer Tilly (last seen in "Tideland"), with cameos from Diedrich Bader (last heard in "Bolt") and French Stewart (last seen in "Clockstoppers").
RATING: 5 out of 10 riddles
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