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Credits

Rated: G; Genres: Animation, Drama, Fantasy; With: John Cusack, Kelsey Grammer and Meg Ryan

No trace of the bloodshed that did in the last Czar and his family intrudes on this animated retread of the oft-told Anastasia myth, but parents may find this retelling a little too bloodless. The Disneyfied gloss has an amnesiac Anastasia (Ryan, voicing the headstrong heroine) hooking up with two hucksters (Cusack as her attracting opposite; Grammer as an avuncular royalist) who convince her to try convincing the Czar's mother that she is the lost princess. The animators' beguiling take on fading imperial grandeur and some Pygmalion-like moments — Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty's catchy ''The Rain in Spain'' stand-in — will help keep everyone engaged until the clearly foreseeable end. C+


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Posted May 01, 1998
 

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