An American Tail (1986)

 

Genre: Family/Adventure                 Time: 1h 20mins              Director: Don Bluth

Quick Summary: Fievel, a young Russian mouse gets separated from his family during their migration trip to America. Being completely new to the country he lands in, will he be able to trace his family?

An American Tail is richly enhanced by warm, painterly backgrounds, while the characters are animated with a properly inked technique, which honestly I absolutely adore. It creates such a nostalgic feeling that makes you feel very warm and childlike. 

Unfortunately, the characters in this film come across as one-note and pretty bland to me and it becomes pretty slow and predictable in the final half of the film, the characters besides Fievel are more of a mix, with some either being good supporters or being rather unnecessary. Though I would like to defend this by saying this is a film directed towards kids.  

While the movie does get really sad and kinda irritating by constantly letting down poor Fievel whenever he thinks he's one step closer to seeing his folks again (even though they are literally about 5 steps away from each other in most scenes), it also has quite an optimistic feel to it. It's not hard to root for Fievel on his journey due to how determined he is to find his loved ones, especially with the help of others. The film lets Fievel down so much that when he finally reunites with his family at the end, it's an incredibly happy and heart-melting moment that really makes all those hardships worth it.

It has a lot of heart, sad and happy moments, and does have a nice touch from Don Bluth and even Steven Spielberg who made it his first animated feature, and he based it upon the story of his immigrant grandparents who were Jewish and his great-grandfather was named Fievel. 

In addition to James Horner's emotionally captivating music score, the real stand out is Somewhere Out There; it perfectly captures the theme that even through the most difficult and dark times in life, it's important to look on the bright side because there's a good chance things will turn out for the better very soon. It was the only song that really stuck with me after the film.

In terms of negatives, I think the film's story kind of went all over the place some of the time. Subplots are thrown about and left unanswered or they're over so quickly you kinda miss them happening. Again, I do think this is to keep the attention of kids who need constant stimulation. 

6/10

"Tony Toponi: Why didn't you tell me what time it was, huh?

Fievel Mousekewitz: But Tony, I can't tell time."