Review of Bartok the Magnificent

1st watched 2/2/2013 – 3 out of 10(Dir-Don Bluth): Disappointing follow-up to very well done 1997 film "Anastasia" by Director Don Bluth and Producer Gary Goldman. This straight-to-video release takes one character from the previous mentioned film, Bartok, voiced by Hank Azaria, and places him into an older setting where the Romanov's still reign and Bartok is a traveling entertainer in Moscow with his bear friend voiced by Kelsey Grammar. He fakes the crowd into thinking he has powers – so when the current Prince appears to be kidnapped – the people want Bartok to rescue him from the clutches of a strange witch. Technically this movie looks very good, and the animation holds up against the 1997 film. The music was created by the original team from "Anastasia", but the songs do not hold up, and are not memorable at all. The main problem with the movie, though, is the story and screenplay – which is not funny, and seems like it was pieced together. Bartok is irritating at times and pretty much all of the secondary characters are pretty lame(although the bear voiced by Grammar isn't bad). One of the villains of the piece is a strange witch that turns out to be very un-scary even though the initial music makes it seem like she's just the opposite. She hands out three simple tasks to Bartok before she supposedly hands over the prince, and then ends up not having him?? What was with this plot twist?? It was done primarily to reveal the real villain which ends up being the backup person to the Prince's throne(how original was this??). Sorry about the plot revelations, but if you watch this movie you won't really care about this anyway. If you think the movie is OK for kids, it's not…it's a little too creepy in some scenes and has some adult humor. So basically, this movie is definitely a flop in many ways. Avoid it.