An American Tail

It has the most important ingredient for a good cartoon feature: an appealing main character.

[It] celebrates the rich diversity of our melting-pot heritage; it doesn't insult kids (or adults) with fifth-rate Saturday-morning non-animation; and it gives us some wonderfully memorable characters that weren't already sitting on the Toys R Us shelves.

Beautifully animated in the classic tradition of Pinocchio, An American Tall depicts the immigrant experience of i hundred years ago as seen through the eyes of young Fievel Mousekewitz, his family and his murine compadres.

There is no crackle to the tale, no suspense to the adventure. Older, more sophisticated children -- those beyond, say, 8 -- are going to find it bland.

Though am usually responsive, nay Pavlovian, with my tear-ducts, on such occasions, one feels that to respond here is like weeping at the request of a mugger with a gat.

It's a sweet, tame movie.

An American Tail is simply not remarkable. It's handsome, wholesome and eager to please, but its theme seems well beyond the ken of the very young. Worse, the plot has a dreadful familiarity to it -- the borrowings are extensive.

The sights and most of the sounds are always eye-filling and occasionally thrilling. The mouse's-eye views of old Manhattan are stunningly rendered, as are the bird's-eye panoramas. And Horner's score has sweep and splendor.

Its impossible to review Steven Spielberg's first fully animated venture without using the words "cute, charming and adorable," so I've disposed of them all in this first sentence.

...carefully reconstructed history... [Full review in Spanish]