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An American Tail: Fievel Goes West (1991)


An American Tail: Fievel Goes West (1991)


4/10

Starring the voices of
Phillip Glasser
James Stewart
Erica Yohn
Cathy Cavadini
Nehemiah Persoff
Dom DeLuise


Directed by Phil Nibbelink and Simon Wells

The second story of An American Tail does not feel unique, even though there is a good upgrade noticeable in the graphics. It seems like the mouse city seem to fall for the same old trick looking for places where they do not have to deal with cats, well as they find out in this movie no such place exists.
This movie was meant to be entertaining and in some ways it tries, but it was entertainment without substance, like someone eating dry bread with no water.
Even though the runtime is just a few minutes shorter than the first movie, this movie feels very short. I have seen it more than once before now, but seeing it again in 2020 I keep wondering if this version I have is missing a whole chunk, or maybe it is the fast pace of the movie that makes it feel as so.
This movie like its predecessor is a musical, unlike An American Tail (1986) which had more than one memorable song, this just had one. Which was sang by Fievel’s sister Tanya sang in the saloon, titled The Girl You Left Behind it is my second favorite from the series, the best remains Somewhere Out There from the first movie.

The movie plot takes place a few years after the first movie. Things are not rosy for the Mousekewitz and the town folks and the cats are still troubling them.
We see an aristocrat cat named Cat R. Waul come and persuade the rest that they should travel to the west that over there the cats and mice are friendly towards one another. Waul had other plans for the mice folks when they finally reach the west.
Before they ride West we find out that Tiger’s girl Miss Kitty is also heading West. Tiger is the vegetarian cat from the first movie.
Tiger learns that Fievel is also heading west and he goes after them.

As usual Fievel goes exploring during the train ride and stumbles on the plans Waul has for the mice. He is discovered and gets knocked off the train, which his parents notice. Now Fievel is alone in the desert and needs to find his way back to his family and also save them from the plans of Waul.

In the end this movie was not as big a commercial or critical success as the first one. It is not a worthy sequel to the first film, but regardless it made enough money to inspire further direct-to-video sequels. There was also an animated children series done.
Don Bluth was not in charge of the production in this movie, he parted ways with Steven Spielberg before the production of this movie. Spielberg’s animation production company was the one responsible for this movie.

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