Review of An American Tail (1986) by Matthew R — 22 Jul 2016

Don Bluth and Steven Speilberg's "An American Tail", created in 1986, is what I would consider the weakest of the four Bluth films from the 1980s, but that doesn't make it a bad movie.

Fievel Mousekewitz is the main character of the film, and the story involves him and his family arriving a boat that would immigrate all the way to America. Suddenly, a storm comes through the seas, and Fievel goes overboard. While he soon realizes that the next morning he washed up in America, he does not realize yet that his family isn't far away as they have also have made it to America. Fievel then comes across many uniquely designed characters while at the same time, searching for his family.

The character Fievel does in fact act a lot like a 5 or 6 year old kid, but that does not make him a forgettable character. You can understand the situation that he is in to surprisingly make him a likable character, as he is a little kid who immigrated from Russia to America and (for the most part) has to travel on his own to find his family.

The director Don Bluth has once again showed us some great animation in this film, even if it is not on par with his previous film at that time "The Secret of NIMH" or some of his work afterwards. One of my disappointments however with this film is that "An American Tail" has some key elements that may sound cliche for an animated film about mice. Such as how the mice I would assume love cheese (As said from a lyric in "There are no Cats in America") or how the mice of course have a huge hate for cats. Another problem for me is that the film can be a little bit inconsistent when it comes to its story. The story is not bad, it's just we may flop from Fievel saving the day at the end only to end up being in a completely different environment (at an orphanage), or when he rushes with his Italian friend Tony for a rally until he stops and hears what he thinks is his father's violin, and proceeds to follow the music. I honestly wonder if some people would get offended by this film because of some ethnic stereotypes in the film. Such as the Italian mouse in once again the song "There are no Cats in America" as he says phrases associated to Italians like "Poor mama mea!" Speaking of that song, out of all the songs in the film, I found "There are no Cats in America" to be the weakest song in the film, it sounded choppy, the others songs though are great, most notably "Somewhere Out There".

It's interesting that "An American Tail" was written by Tony Geiss and Freudberg, who used to be writers of "Sesame Street", and to be honest, I can believe that. "Sesame Street" had simple stories while having some really good moments, that's exactly what "An American Tail" is, a simple yet sometimes inconsistent story, with some memorable scenes; I do in fact recommend it, unless you are easily offended with some ethnic stereotypes.