This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
Bob Tipping’s review published on Letterboxd:
This review may contain spoilers.
Finally some social commentary on the nose enough for me to understand.
I get the impression Don Bluth didn't really want to make animation for children but was stuck in a time where everyone thought that animation was only for children. A lot of things here would go right over childrens' heads.
It's very pessimistic film, whenever it tries to be optimistic it comes off really strange (I'm pretty sure there are more than a dozen cats in New York, let alone America).
And oh boy the national stereotypes. Among them are an Italian mouse who wants to escape Italy because of a mafia family and n Irish mouse constantly drinking (who also tries to grope a woman, very family friendly).
The music's not very spectacular. The kids miss some notes (it's fine to use doubles, you know). I was suprised this is even a musical.
Certain plot points resolve themselves a little quickly. Fievel is forced into child labour, then escapes immediately, and he just out of nowhere has a plan to defeat the cats (shooting at them and chasing them into the water). It seems like cuts where made like in Land Before Time.
I liked the voice acting from Tony and the Not-Rat, but only because I'm into cheesy New York dialects. The French dove was nice too.
The animation's fine and the backgrounds have that nice depressing, desaturated hazyness like in Land Before Time.
It's really not very subtle with the commentary, but I guess that was somewhat necessary for a film targeted to children